Index to Material Related to the Statement of Decision of the Superior Court of the State of California in and for the County of Alameda
The Statement of Decision of Judge Leon Seyranian of the Superior Court of the State of California concluded the libel litigation concerning The God-Men by Neil Duddy and the SCP (known as Witness Lee et al v. Neil Duddy et al). This decision addressed both the German edition of The God-Men (Die Sonderlehre des Witness Lee) and the manuscript on which it was based (from which the English edition of The God-Men was developed). All three defendants failed to appear in court, including Neil Duddy, the Spiritual Counterfeits Project (which filed for Chapter 11 protection on the morning the trial was to start), and Schwengeler-Verlag, the publisher of the German edition.
The judge documented his decision from the deposition testimony of the defendants introduced into evidence at the trial, supplemented by testimony by a group of expert witnesses in various fields of psychology, sociology, and religion. Based on that evidence, Judge Seyranian found The God-Men to be “in all major respects false, defamatory and unprivileged, and, therefore, libelous.”
The following documents are drawn from Judge Seyranian’s Statement of Decision: