A Massachusetts judge will hold a hearing today on a suit by Viacom CEO and chairman Philippe Dauman and director George Abrams. Both were also directors of National Amusements, the company through which Redstone controls Viacom, and trustees of Redstone’s health care trust until Redstone pushed them out of those positions. They want to be reinstated. But wait, there’s more. Redstone is also trying to unseat Dauman, Abrams, and three other directors from Viacom’s board, and lead independent director Frederic Salerno has sued in Delaware to stop that attempt. Any ruling in the Massachusetts case could affect the Delaware case.

There’s much more legal wrangling going on, but we’ll avoid it for now.

The issue that won’t go away is whether Redstone, 93, is mentally competent to do any of what he appears to be doing, or whether he is merely a puppet of his daughter Shari Redstone, as Dauman and Abrams contend. The transcript of a video deposition Redstone recorded last month certainly casts doubt on his mental competency, but that isn’t a satisfactory basis for any ruling.

Another angle: While Redstone is waging war on Dauman, he hasn’t uttered a peep lately about the other media behemoth he controls, CBS, or its CEO, Leslie Moonves. Why not? Let me take a guess. Since Redstone took both companies public in 2005, Viacom stock is up 13%; CBS stock is up 107%. The big divergence happened under Dauman and Moonves. Which one would you be trying to fire?

The tragedy is that Viacom, the company that most needs managerial attention, is instead almost leaderless and is distracted by turmoil that seems intractable. Even CBS investors and employees, understandably concerned about Redstone’s capacity, have to wonder what would happen if he turns his attention to their company. All because Redstone cannot bear to let go.

This is an ironic echo of the history of CBS, from which Viacom was spun off in 1971. Founder-CEO William S. Paley was another leader who couldn’t leave. Over the years he named five designated successors, none of whom succeeded him. (Disclosure: Eons ago I worked for Paley on the team ghostwriting his memoir.) He was a great entrepreneur and a great industry pioneer, but he was not a great leader. Because he couldn’t relinquish control to younger, more perceptive managers in the 1980s, CBS fell behind in cable programming and distribution in ways that hobble the company to this day.

If the Redstone saga drags on, he could do just as much damage.

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