Reduced Award Against the Krishnas Upheld

The state Supreme Court, acting in a bitter, 12-year battle over religious practices, on Thursday let stand an appellate ruling that sharply reduced a multimillion-dollar award against the Hare Krishnas and rejected charges that the group had “brainwashed” an Orange County girl when she was a teen-ager.

The justices refused to hear an appeal by Robin George and her mother contending that there was ample evidence that George had been deceived and coerced into leaving home and joining the group at age 14.

The Georges also sought to reinstate the original $32-million jury verdict against the Krishnas in 1983 that was reduced first by a trial judge to $9.7 million and then cut to $2.9 million last August by a state Court of Appeal.

However, at the same time, the high court also refused to hear a separate appeal by the Hare Krishnas, arguing that even the reduced award should be overturned as a “gross and irreparable injustice” that undermined their constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Thursday’s action came in a brief order signed by Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas that, while leaving the appellate decision binding on the parties in the case, barred that ruling from being used as a precedent in other cases.

Alan G. Martin of Beverly Hills, an attorney for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, said there was “a pretty good chance” that the group will now ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its contentions that the award violated First Amendment guarantees of religious liberty.

While pleased that the Georges’ appeal was rejected, Martin expressed concern that even the reduced $2.9-million award would have “a very dramatic” adverse effect on the group’s activities.

David A. Niddrie of San Diego, an attorney for the Georges, expressed disappointment that the high court allowed the appellate decision to stand.

“The implication is that a prior member of these organizations cannot collect for false imprisonment and emotional distress,” Niddrie said. “I’m troubled that a 14-year-old girl was deemed to somehow have consented to what happened to her in this case. . . . The (reduced) award is insufficient in that it doesn’t compensate Robin for what happened to her.”

Robin George--who is now married and goes by the name of Robin George Westerkamp--also expressed mixed feelings about the ruling.

“I am certainly glad the award was not reduced further, but I don’t think the court went far enough,” she said. “The evidence we presented showed that without a doubt, I was completely brainwashed and the things that I did are not things I would do in my ‘right’ mind. They (Krishnas) used their influence to manipulate people.”

The woman, an interior designer who will say only--out of fear of retribution from the Krishnas--that she lives in northern Orange County, said she was disappointed that the case cannot be used as a legal precedent.

She contended that the Hare Krishnas prey on minors. “The only way I came to my senses was that my parents were able to get me out of it and away long enough that I could think for myself again,” she said.

The suit was brought in 1977 by the family, claiming that the group had brainwashed the teen-ager into joining the movement and then conspired to conceal her from her parents.

The Georges said that in 1974, Robin George had begun braiding her hair and wearing a sari to school and had constructed a Hindu-style altar in her bedroom, arising each day at 2:30 a.m. to pray and chant. Later, after her parents objected, the girl was told by a Krishna official that she must leave home and live in a temple if she were sincere about her belief, the suit alleged.

After leaving and spending most of a year in Krishna temples in New Orleans and Ottawa, Canada, Robin returned home. Four months later, her father, James George, died of a heart attack that the suit claimed was brought about by stress over the affair.

After a five-month trial, an Orange County Superior Court jury upheld the family’s wide-ranging legal claims and returned the $32-million award for compensatory and punitive damages that was subsequently reduced by Judge James A. Jackman to $9.7 million.

In its ruling on Aug. 30, the state Court of Appeal, in an opinion by Appellate Justice Howard B. Wiener, held that Robin George was not entitled to damages on the ground of false imprisonment. The panel noted that the girl never claimed that she was physically restrained by the Krishnas and it rejected her argument that the group improperly employed “coercive persuasion” or “brainwashing” to force her to remain a member.

Those charges were invalid because they were aimed at Krishna practices--such as diet restrictions, methods of worship and communal living arrangements--that the family considered objectionable but that were protected by the First Amendment, the appeal court said.

The three-member panel, however, found there was sufficient evidence to support an award of $2.9 million to Robin’s mother, Marcia George. The group was not protected by the Constitution for the emotional distress it caused in deceiving the parents by pretending not to know their daughter’s whereabouts, the court held.

“Feigned ignorance was only one aspect of this reprehensible suffering,” Wiener wrote. The Krishnas, by providing Robin George with plane and bus tickets and supplying a wig and glasses to help her disguise herself, engaged in “outrageous conduct” that amply supported the emotional distress claim by the mother, the court said.

In addition, the panel held that Robin George was entitled to $75,000 for her father’s death.

Staff writer Chris Woodyard in Orange County contributed to this story.