WRIT LARGE
Big clients, big cases, big adversaries
Taking on Jimmy Swaggart
25 years ago, Hunter Lundy’s life and career took shape
because of the televangelist suit BY JESSICA FRANK
Hunter Lundy was 32 years old and had just
started his own firm in Lake Charles when he filed
a $90 million defamation suit against evangelist
Jimmy Swaggart. The suit intended to prove that
Swaggart, his attorney and other Assemblies of
God officials conspired to ruin the reputation of
fellow TV preacher Marvin Gorman.
On Sept. 10, 1991, after a 10-week trial, a jury
awarded Gorman $10 million in damages. At the
time, Lundy had no idea how much the case would
affect his career and, in a larger aspect, his life.
“I was a young lawyer when I filed this lawsuit,”
Lundy says of Gorman v. Swaggart. “I had just
started my own law firm, and probably had more
guts than I did sense. People thought I was crazy.”
At the time, Swaggart was rubbing elbows with
Pat Robertson, greeting then-President Ronald
Reagan as he got off Air Force One, and frequent-
ly speaking on major TV networks. Meanwhile,
Gorman, also an Assemblies of God preacher,
was on the rise. He was in the process of purchas-
ing a TV station in Lake Charles, a deal that never
came to fruition, when things went awry.
On July 15, 1986, Swaggart invited Gorman
to his home and confronted him with accusations that he engaged in adultery—accusations
he would later share with Assemblies of God
officials. “They knew he was scheduled to close
on a $20 million bonding package. It was the day
before the closing that they decided to make the
accusations against him and put his finances on
notice,” Lundy says.
Gorman resigned from the church the following
day, but Swaggart allegedly went further—
insisting that two statements be read before the congregation outlining a series of “immoral incidents”
and “lascivious conduct.” Suing a man as notable
as Swaggart wouldn’t be easy, Lundy says, but
Gorman was intent on clearing his name.
“Until [Swaggart] started attacking his kids, he
would have never sued,” Lundy says. Gorman’s
three children were Assembly of God ministers, and
the allegations threatened their credentials. “He
filed a suit and basically said the Assemblies of God
… were wrong for what they did and they were getting pressure from the Swaggarts and their lawyers.
When they put those letters out and went after his
children … he sued them.”
Gorman v. Swaggart was initially thrown out on
First Amendment grounds, with the court ruling
it was an ecclesiastical matter and had no subject
matter jurisdiction. Then, about a week before the
appeal, “The world found out that Jimmy Swag-
gart had been caught on Airline Highway with a
prostitute,” Lundy says. “That was national news
when we rolled into the court of appeals to argue
the reversal.”
National and international news outlets sub-
sequently swarmed the civil district court in New
Orleans, Lundy says. “There was a People maga-
zine article, front page picture [of Swaggart] that
said, ‘I have sinned.’ You’ll see me in that article.
There were pictures of us coming out of the court-
house and so forth. … I mean, I never experienced
anything like this.”
Gorman’s ultimate $10 million award was the
largest defamation verdict in the history of Louisi-
ana. But more importantly: “He felt he was vindi-
cated when the jury verdict came back,” Lundy says.
Twenty-five years later, Lundy would not have
done anything differently.
“Our client was adamant about getting his name
cleared in the trial, but he had information [about
Swaggart’s indiscretions that] he didn’t disclose
to us until the world knew about it. Had we known
about it, we probably could have gotten the case
resolved early on because it was really damaging,”
Lundy says. “He did the right thing. He wanted to be
vindicated in the trial, and the jury vindicated him.”
Once Lundy returned to Lake Charles, his
phone rang off the hook. Many of the calls were
from other religious leaders looking for repre-
sentation. But Lundy didn’t want to be involved
in any more “preacher cases.” “I don’t want to do
anything that gives Christianity a black eye,” he
says. “That’s the bottom line.”
Then, one evening in 2004, Lundy called Gor-
man, who was preparing for a service. “I was just
an hour away,” Lundy says, “and 19 years after I’d
known him, I’d never heard him preach.” It was
a transformative moment, he says, and in 2009
Lundy was ordained by Gorman in the Sanctuary
of Hope church in Missouri.
“Brother Gorman was first a client, then became a
friend and then became a mentor,” Lundy says.
Hunter W. Lundy
LUNDY, LUNDY,
SOILEAU & SOUTH
PERSONAL INJURY -
PRODUCTS: PLAINTIFF,
BUSINESS LITIGATION,
CLASS ACTION/MASS
TORTS
LAKE CHARLES
Marvin Gorman (left) and
his attorney, Hunter Lundy
(right), in 2005.
