Jason Scott case
| Scott v. Ross | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Court | United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit |
| Full case name | Jason Scott v. Rick Ross, aka Rickey Allen Ross; Mark Workman; Charles Simpson, and Cult Awareness Network, a California Non-Profit Corp. |
| Decided | September 1995 (jury verdict) April 8, 1998 (Court of Appeals decision) |
| Citation(s) | 140 F.3d 1275 (9th Cir. 1998) |
| Case history | |
| Prior action(s) | Jury verdict in favor of plaintiff |
| Subsequent action(s) | Rehearing En Banc denied, August 26, 1998, 151 F.3d 1247. Certiorari denied March 22, 1999, 526 U.S. 1033. |
| Case opinions | |
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Majority: Dissent: |
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| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Mary M. Schroeder, Robert R. Beezer, & William Schwarzer |
The Jason Scott case was a United States civil suit, brought against deprogrammer Rick Ross, two of his associates, and the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), for the abduction and failed deprogramming of Jason Scott, a member of a Pentecostalist church. Scott was eighteen years old at the time of the abduction and thus legally an adult. CAN was a co-defendant because a CAN contact person had referred Scott's mother to Rick Ross. In the trial, Jason Scott was represented by Kendrick Moxon, a prominent Scientologist attorney.
The nine-member jury unanimously held the defendants liable for conspiracy to deprive Scott of his civil rights and religious liberties. In addition, the jury held that Ross and his associates (but not CAN) "intentionally or recklessly acted in a way so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community." The case resulted in an award of $875,000 in compensatory damages and punitive damages in the amount of $1,000,000 against CAN, $2,500,000 against Ross, and $250,000 against each of Ross's two associates. The case bankrupted the Cult Awareness Network and marked a watershed for non-traditional religions and the Christian countercult movement in North America.
In January 1991, at the time of the failed deprogramming attempt, Jason Scott, of Bellevue, Washington, was an 18-year-old member of the Life Tabernacle Church, affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church International. Scott's mother, Katherine Tonkin, had been a member of the church, but had withdrawn from it. Jason and two younger sons of hers disagreed with her decision and insisted they would remain in the church.
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