By Joe Flint and Keach Hagey 

Media mogul Sumner Redstone will be deposed in the legal battle over his mental competency, a surprising twist in the high-profile case, but he won't testify in person, a California judge said Monday.

The case, which goes to trial on Friday in Los Angeles, centers on a claim by Mr. Redstone's former companion Manuela Herzer that he was mentally incompetent when he exiled her from his mansion last fall and removed her as his health agent. The 92-year-old Mr. Redstone is the controlling shareholder of Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp.

In a ruling issued at the start of a court hearing, Judge David Cowan said that each side would get to conduct a 15-minute deposition of Mr. Redstone that would be videotaped. Speech therapist Anne Lefton can serve as an interpreter for Mr. Redstone, whose speech is impaired.

The deposition will be played in a closed courtroom on Friday. A transcript of it will be released to the public afterward.

"I'd like to hear his feelings," Judge Cowan told the courtroom Monday. "If he says 'Damn it...I don't want her in my life,' then that is something the court should hear," he added.

Since Ms. Herzer filed her suit last November, her lawyers repeatedly have pressed, unsuccessfully, to have Mr. Redstone deposed.

The matter came before the court again Monday after Ms. Herzer's legal team put Mr. Redstone on their list of witnesses for trial. Ms. Herzer's lawyers called Mr. Redstone's lawyers' opposition to an appearance by the mogul "still another attempt on the part of Counsel to sequester Redstone in Beverly Park and prevent the Court from seeing for itself his tragically debilitated mental condition."

Mr. Redstone's lawyer, Loeb & Loeb attorney Gabrielle Vidal, told the judge that "stress and anxiety could be harmful in the extreme to him." The court, she said, should "prioritize Mr. Redstone's health above all."

Ms. Herzer's lead counsel, Pierce O'Donnell, said the judge's decision strikes "a very fair balance." After the hearing, he said, "15 minutes should be more than enough for me to establish his tragic lack of capacity."

The tug of war over whether and how Mr. Redstone would have his say cuts to the heart of the case. Ms. Herzer alleges that Mr. Redstone was a "living ghost" who could barely follow the thread of conversation when he expelled her last October. Mr. Redstone's lawyers, meanwhile, have maintained that her case has no merit and that he has the capacity to make his own health-care decisions.

Should the judge decide that Mr. Redstone did indeed lack capacity, it could have profound implications for the companies that Mr. Redstone controls. Although he stepped down as executive chairman of CBS and Viacom in February, he controls 80% of the voting shares of each.

Those shares will move to a trust controlled by seven trustees in the event he dies or is deemed incapacitated. While the ruling in the case wouldn't trigger the trust directly, it would increase pressure on the trustees to begin their own process of examining his capacity.

Write to Joe Flint at joe.flint@wsj.com and Keach Hagey at keach.hagey@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 03, 2016 02:49 ET (06:49 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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