Billionaire Sumner Redstone either can’t talk or he’s able to clearly communicate how he wants to run his $40 billion media empire. It depends on whom you ask.

The 93-year-old’s mental capabilities were at the center of a hearing Thursday in Canton, Massachusetts. Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Philippe Dauman claims the company’s controlling shareholder is incapacitated and being manipulated by his daughter, Shari Redstone. Redstone’s lawyers say the case should be dismissed or moved to California, where the media mogul has lived for more than a dozen years.

Probate Judge George Phelan didn’t immediately rule on Redstone’s request or on Dauman’s challenge to his removal from a trust that controls Viacom. The judge didn’t say when he would hand down a decision in a case that Dauman wants fast-tracked.

“Obviously, I have a lot to digest,” the judge said after more than six hours of arguments.

Redstone’s lawyers assured Phelan the billionaire can communicate even as his health declines. His attorney, Robert Kleiger, told the judge he meets with the mogul three or four times a week and will brief him Friday on the status of the case.

“Mr. Redstone is very interested in this process,” the lawyer said.

Power Play

Lawyers for the two men ousted as trustees sought to persuade Phelan that Shari Redstone saw an opportunity when her father’s condition worsened and launched a power play aimed at taking control of the owner of Paramount Pictures and the CBS television network.

“She schemes,” said Les Fagen, an attorney for Dauman and fellow trustee George Abrams. “She isolates him. She shuts out his old colleagues, including my client Philippe Dauman, who worked for Mr. Redstone for 30 years.”

Dauman and Abrams are engaging in “character assassination” by painting the billionaire’s daughter as a power-hungry harridan, countered Elizabeth Burnett, a lawyer for Shari Redstone. “I know Shari and descriptions of her as puppet master are not true.”

Dauman and Abrams sued in May, claiming Redstone was mentally incapacitated when he ousted them from his National Amusements Trust, which controls 80 percent of Viacom shares. The months-long drama has unsettled staff, delayed deals and left many questioning what’s next for the company, which also owns cable-TV channels including MTV and Nickelodeon.

Three States

The fight has led to lawsuits in three states, with Redstone suing in Delaware to confirm his decisions to remove Dauman and four other Viacom directors. He also is asking a California judge to ratify his decision to remove Dauman and Abrams from the trust while contending with an ex-girlfriend’s claims that he’s unable to make his own health-care decisions. The outcome of the Massachusetts suit could affect the other cases.

Dauman, who has been president and CEO of Viacom for almost a decade, claims the aging billionaire suffers from a neurological disorder and can’t walk, read or participate in meaningful conversation. Redstone has a feeding tube and rarely leaves his California mansion, Dauman says.

Redstone, who has rarely been seen in recent years, has stopped speaking at quarterly earnings calls and hasn’t appeared at other public company events. He stepped down from the chairmanship in February, ceding the position to Dauman, his longtime protege.

Dauman and Abrams want Phelan to order a mental examination to determine if Redstone was lucid when he removed them as trustees. A Delaware Chancery Court judge is holding off ordering a similar exam while awaiting the decision in Massachusetts. Fred Salerno, another ousted director, has sued Redstone and his daughter in that state challenging his removal from the board.

Three Doctors

Redstone’s lawyers say the billionaire can be deemed incompetent only if a panel of three doctors declare him so under the trust’s terms. Until then, Redstone has the power to remove overseers of the entity, created to hold his multi-billion-dollar Viacom interest in trust for his grandchildren. While alive, Redstone has sole voting power over the media conglomerate’s shares.

The trust case should be heard in California, where the billionaire moved in 2003 after divorcing his wife and where the entity is administered, his lawyers said. California provides jury trials on mental-competence questions, Kleiger said.

“Mr. Redstone has made this absolutely clear that he wants this decided in his home state,” the attorney said.

Fagan said the trust was created in Massachusetts as part of Redstone’s divorce and some of the entity’s documents are stored in his office in Norwood, about four miles from the courtroom in neighboring Canton. The majority of the mogul’s grandchildren live in or near Massachusetts, as does Shari Redstone, the lawyer for the ousted trustees said.

“This is a Massachusetts trust,” Fagan said. “If you send this case to California, it would be the wrong place.”

The case is Dauman v. Redstone, 16-E0020, Massachusetts Probate and Family Court, Norfolk County (Canton).