The fight between two LGBT organizations in Pasadena escalated yesterday with the filing of another law suit.
Rev. Rick Eisenlord, the pastor of Good Shepherd Church Pasadena, filed a federal suit for libel, slander and unfair business competition against the LGBT organization he founded, Pasadena Pride Center, and the woman who took the Center over.
The U.S. District Court suit, which was served on the defendants Wednesday, claims PPC and Liz Schiller, the PPC’s interim director, “willfully, with malice and without privilege” made false statements that “have caused … damage to Rev. Eisenlord, his reputation, his Church, and his new organization, the San Gabriel Valley Gay and Lesbian Center, which he created to broaden the geographic reach of his ministry.”
“The result has been an enormous and unjustified distraction that has forced Rev. Eisenlord to expend resources and time that could have been allocated to ministering to the neediest in the LGBT community,” the suit says.
The Pasadena Pride Center, which Eisenlord founded in 2011, sued him last year in L.A. County Superior Court, alleging he misappropriated the center’s website address and email contact list to create his own LGBT center, slandered PPC’s board of directors and misappropriated PPC funds by using its ATM card to pay personal expenses.
Eisenlord’s lawyer successfully argued that alleged misuse of a website URL was a federal matter, not a state matter. The case was moved in January to U.S. District Court.
The PPC board asked for the resignations of Eisenlord and co-founder Paulette Hunnewell last October. According to its lawsuit, Eisenlord demanded the PPC pay him $10,000 for his services to the non-profit LGBT advocacy and service organization.
In his suit, Eisenlord, who founded Good Shepherd Church Pasadena, says he registered the domain name pasadenenapridecenter.org to himself and the Church and created the logo and other items ultimately used by PPC prior to creating the organization as an offshoot of his church in 2011.
“At no point from the creation of PPC to Rev. Eisenlord’s forced resignation (in 2013) was an intellectual property assignment agreement ever created or implemented granting ownership of name, internet domain, mailing lists or other items to PPC,” the suit says.
The suit alleges “false and libelous” statements made by PPC and Schiller on the organization’s Facebook page and in the media, adding that PPC and Schiller “knew that the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.”
Despite multiple demands that the defamatory statements be retracted and removed, PPC and Schiller have refused, the suit says.
Eisenlord’s “good reputation in the community and the general public” has been damaged by the “libelous and slanderous” statements, the suit says.
Unless restricted by the court, PPC and Schiller “will continue to engage in unfair and misrepresentative conduct” that “will cause additional damage to (Eisenlord’s) business, professional reputation and goodwill, leading to irreparable harm,” the suit says.
The suit says Eisenlord is entitled to general damages for loss of reputation, shame and emotional distress, plus special damages for harm to his property, business, trade, profession or occupation.
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