Appeal Court Slashes Award Against Krishnas

In a long-awaited ruling on religious liberty, a state appeal court in San Diego dismissed a claim that the Hare Krishna sect brainwashed a 15-year-old Orange County girl and cut by more than two-thirds a $9.7-million verdict against the group.

In addition to the brainwashing claim, the 4th District Court of Appeal also dismissed claims that the Krishnas intentionally caused Robin George emotional distress and libeled her. It left her only a $75,000 award tied to the wrongful death of her father.

Freedom of Religion at Issue

However, the court left intact a $2.9-million judgment for Robin’s mother, Marcia George, for emotional distress and libel.

The celebrated case began in 1977 when the George family sued the sect, contending that the group had brainwashed Robin into joining the movement, then hid her from her parents. The complex lawsuit included claims of libel and wrongful death, the latter because stress allegedly brought on the heart attack that killed Robin George’s father in 1976. In 1983, an Orange County jury returned a $32.5-million verdict against the sect, a judgment cut to $9.7 million by the trial judge.

In their appeal, the Krishnas contended that the verdict interfered with their constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Attorneys on both sides said Wednesday that appeals of the most recent, 105-page decision are almost certain because neither side can be considered a complete winner.

Robin George “got clobbered,� said Lynde Selden, a San Diego attorney representing the Georges. “And, if anybody was wronged by this Krishna behavior, it was Robin. I think her mother agrees. Robin was injured the worst.�

Robin George, now 29 and known by her married name, Robin George Westerkamp, is an interior designer living in Orange County. She said the verdict was “sad.�

The court apparently didn’t understand the “element of mind control and how that interferes with your thinking,� she said. “The court is looking at this case and saying, ‘This girl did these things and had a choice--there must be something wrong with her.’

‘Not Like Joining the Baptist Church’

“If I hadn’t gone through this myself, if I was Joe Average or something, I would probably think I didn’t deserve anything. But it’s not that simple. Not like joining the Baptist church. It’s a totally different ballgame.�

Marcia George was out of the state Wednesday, her daughter said. She could not be reached.

A group of Krishnas, including about 35 who had walked to San Diego from San Francisco en route to Tijuana to publicize the case, gathered Wednesday afternoon at Horton Plaza downtown to celebrate what they called “a victory for religious freedom.�

“The court was really very wise on that brainwashing fiasco,� said Mukunda Goswami, a spokesman for the Krishnas, noting that the $9.7-million award would have forced the sect to sell six temples--in San Diego, Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, Brooklyn, New Orleans and outside New Orleans.

“We’re going to recommend that we take it to the (state) Supreme Court, if for no other reason than we don’t think the evidence will sustain any of those causes of action as to the old lady,� said W. Marshall Morgan, the Los Angeles attorney who represented the Krishnas, formally known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Attorney Is Troubled

David A. Niddrie, the San Diego lawyer who helped handle the appeal for the Georges, said he had read only parts of the opinion, but said it “troubles me in that it gives these types of organizations the opportunity to . . . mistreat their own members as long as it doesn’t sort of adversely affect the interest of people on the outside. I don’t think that’s the state of the law in California.�

The decision is the latest turn in a case that began when Robin George, then a 15-year-old Cypress teen-ager, ran away from home in November, 1974.

She spent most of the next year in Krishna temples in New Orleans and Ottawa, Canada. The following November, she ran away from the Krishnas and returned home.

In March, 1976, less than four months after she returned home, her father, James George, died of a heart attack. The stress caused by his dealings with the Krishnas and his inability to locate his daughter for the year she was gone “significantly shortened his life,� an expert testified at trial.

Five-Month Trial

In October, 1977, Marcia and Robin George sued the Krishnas in Orange County Superior Court, contending that the sect brainwashed Robin and then conspired to hide her from her parents. After a five-month trial, a jury returned the $32.5-million verdict. Judge James A. Jackman reduced the amount to $9.7 million.

San Diego attorney Milton Silverman represented the Georges at trial, but did not take part in the appeal.

The “centerpiece� of the appeal, according to Justice Howard Wiener, who wrote the lengthy opinion, was the brainwashing claim. The Georges contended that Robin had been brainwashed and could not leave the temples even if she wanted to.

According to a 1988 ruling from the state Supreme Court--in a case involving the Unification Church--Robin needed to show that the Krishnas physically restrained her from leaving, which they did not, Wiener said.

In that 1988 case, the court dismissed a claim brought by a former church member who wanted to leave a retreat but was told that, if she did, she would be “damned to hell forever.� Such threats alone are “protected religious speech,� the court said.

The George case appears to be the first appellate test after the Unification case, attorneys involved said.

Same as Other Devotees

George’s brainwashing theory admittedly focused on more than threats of “divine retribution,� Wiener said. But imposing liability because of “dietary restrictions, methods of worship and communal living arrangements and schedules is just as surely inimical to the free exercise of religious liberty as that based on threats of divine retribution,� he said.

Even if a physical threat was not required, George presented no evidence that her “schedules, practices and duties� as a Krishna devotee differed from any other devotee’s, Wiener said. Without that evidence, “Robin’s brainwashing theory . . . is no more than an attempt to premise tort liability on religious practices the Georges find objectionable. Such a result is simply inconsistent with the First Amendment.�

The panel dismissed George’s claim for emotional distress because many of the acts she called “outrageous� are “hardly uncommon� among cloistered religious groups, Wiener said.

It also tossed out her libel claim, an element of the case that even the attorneys involved said was complex and confusing. It stemmed from a Krishna statement distributed to the press at an Oct. 29, 1976, press conference.

The statement said that when George came to the Krishnas, she complained of being beaten by her parents. It concluded, “For all we know now, (Robin’s) accounts of brutality and beatings (by her parents) were exaggerated or totally fabricated.�

Since the statement included the phrase, For all we know now , it alerted readers that the Krishnas were merely expressing their opinion about whether Robin was lying when she gave her “supposed earlier accounts of brutality at the hands of her parents,� Wiener said. Statements of opinion, as opposed to fact, cannot support a claim for libel, he said.

Life Expectancy Shortened

The court left untouched only George’s $75,000 jury verdict for her father’s death, finding that his life expectancy was shortened by stress.

Marcia George did not file a wrongful-death claim. But the panel approved of the award for her claim for emotional distress, finding the Krishnas had bought plane and bus tickets, disguises and fake photographs, among other acts, to help hide her daughter.

Those actions provide a “more than adequate basis� for concluding that the Krishnas engaged in “outrageous conduct,� Wiener said.