Suhre v. Haywood County

• Decision Date: 12 December 1997
• Docket Number: No. 97-1457,97-1457
• Citation: 131 F.3d 1083
• Parties: Richard SUHRE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HAYWOOD COUNTY, North Carolina, Defendant-Appellee, and Board of Commissioners; The Manager of Haywood County, North Carolina, Defendants. The Rutherford Institute; Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Amici Curiae.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1083

131 F.3d 1083

Richard SUHRE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HAYWOOD COUNTY, North Carolina, Defendant-Appellee and Board of Commissioners; The Manager of Haywood County North Carolina, Defendants The Rutherford Institute; Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Amici Curiae.

No. 97-1457.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued Oct. 1, 1997.

Decided Dec. 12, 1997.

ARGUED: Anna Elizabeth Daly, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. Jonathan Drew Sasser, Moore & Van Allen, P.L.L.C., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: George Daly, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. Leon M. Killian, III, Killian, Kersten & Patton, P.A., Waynesville, North Carolina, for Appellee. Gregory D. Smith, Clarksville, Tennessee; Gregory N. Hopkins, Huntsville, Alabama, for Amicus Curiae The Rutherford Institute. Steven K. Green, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae Americans United.

Before WILKINSON, Chief Judge, and WILKINS and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Chief Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge WILKINS and Judge LUTTIG joined.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Chief Judge:

Richard Suhre, a resident of Haywood County, North Carolina, asserts that the maintenance of a Ten Commandments display in the main courtroom of the Haywood County Courthouse violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. He appeals the district court's ruling that he lacks standing to pursue this claim either as a citizen or as a municipal taxpayer. Because we find that Suhre does have standing as a citizen to press his Establishment Clause claim, we reverse the district court and remand for further proceedings.

I.

At the heart of this lawsuit is a display located in the main courtroom of Haywood County's Courthouse. On the wall behind the judge's bench is a marble and plaster bas-relief representation of Lady Justice blindfolded and holding scales and a sword. She is flanked by two marble tablets containing an abridged version of the Ten Commandments. The text can be read from the jury box and the front half of the chamber. The courtroom containing the Ten Commandments display is used by both the County's Superior and District courts.

Suhre has been a contentious character in Haywood County. He has been party to a number of legal actions, several of which involved hearings in the main Haywood County courtroom. For example, proceedings in at least two of the five prosecutions he brought against his neighbors for violations of the County noise ordinance took place in this courtroom. A civil suit Suhre filed against the County was dismissed in a proceeding he attended in the Ten Commandments courtroom. And Suhre was twice convicted of misdemeanor telephone harassment in this courtroom.

In addition to providing a forum for judicial business, the main courtroom also hosts a variety of public and governmental meetings. The County Commissioners hold their annual public budget hearings in that courtroom. And Suhre recalls attending at least four other meetings in the courtroom, including a public hearing on road maintenance, a meeting of the County agricultural department regarding land use rules, a public meeting about the noise ordinance, and a meeting held by a candidate for state legislature. Suhre asserts that the courtroom is "a popular place to hold meetings."

An avowed atheist, Suhre claims he is offended and "filled with revulsion" when he sees the Ten Commandments on the main courtroom wall. He also fears that the presence of the Ten Commandments skews the application of the law by influencing juries to base their decisions on religious rather than legal precepts. Though Suhre cannot say that the presence of the Ten Commandments on the courtroom wall has caused him to alter his conduct in any way, he avers that contact with the display causes him distress.

After he unsuccessfully requested that the County remove the Ten Commandments from the courtroom, Suhre filed this suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Board of Commissioners of Haywood County, the County Manager, and the Commissioners in their official capacities. He sought a declaratory judgment that the continued presence of the Ten Commandments in the courtroom is unconstitutional and an injunction against maintenance of the tablets on which the commandments are displayed. He also sought an award of attorneys' fees. Suit was dismissed against the individual defendants, leaving the County, through the Board of Commissioners, as the only defendant. The district court granted the County's motion for summary judgment, holding that Suhre lacked standing either as a citizen or as a municipal taxpayer to challenge the County's display of the Ten Commandments. Suhre now appeals.

II.

In denying Suhre citizen standing to challenge Haywood County's Ten Commandments display, the district court reasoned that his unwelcome direct contact with a state-sponsored religious display did not satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement for standing. We cannot agree and hold that Suhre does possess standing as a citizen to pursue his Establishment Clause claim. ^* We express no view, however, on the merits of Suhre's claim.

A.

Like others seeking the aid of the courts, Establishment Clause plaintiffs satisfy Article III only when they demonstrate that they have suffered injury in fact that was caused by the conduct they challenge and is redressable by a judicial decision. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136-37, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). It has been repeatedly noted that "the concept of injury for standing purposes is particularly elusive in Establishment Clause cases." Murray v. City of Austin, 947 F.2d 147, 151 (5th Cir.1991); see also Saladin v. City of Milledgeville, 812 F.2d 687, 691 (11th Cir.1987); ACLU v. City of St. Charles, 794 F.2d 265, 267-68 (7th Cir.1986); ACLU v. Rabun County, 698 F.2d 1098, 1102 (11th Cir.1983). However, as the Constitution establishes no hierarchy of constitutional rights, there is of course no " 'sliding scale' of standing." Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 484, 102 S.Ct. 752, 765, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982).

Nonetheless the standing inquiry in Establishment Clause cases has been tailored to reflect the kind of injuries Establishment Clause plaintiffs are likely to suffer. Tort law is solicitous of, among other things, plaintiffs' physical well-being. Contract law protects plaintiffs' business expectations. But the Establishment Clause plaintiff is not likely to suffer physical injury or pecuniary loss. Rather "the spiritual, value-laden beliefs of the plaintiffs" are often most directly affected by an alleged establishment of religion. See Rabun County, 698 F.2d at 1102. Accordingly, rules of standing recognize that noneconomic or intangible injury may suffice to make an Establishment Clause claim justiciable. Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 486, 102 S.Ct. at 765-66; Smith v. County of Albemarle, 895 F.2d 953, 955 (4th Cir.1990).

B.

Religious display cases are an even more particularized subclass of Establishment Clause standing jurisprudence. The injury that gives standing to plaintiffs in these cases is that caused by unwelcome direct contact with a religious display that appears to be endorsed by the state. Such personal contact with state-sponsored religious symbolism is precisely the injury that was sufficient to confer standing in School District of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 (1963). There school children and their parents challenged the Bible reading and prayer that, pursuant to state law, began each school day. Because the plaintiffs were "directly affected by the laws and practices against which their complaints [were] directed," the Court found that they had standing to pursue their Establishment Clause claim. Id. at 224 n. 9, 83 S.Ct. at 1572-73 n.9. Schempp thus recognized "a spiritual stake in First Amendment values sufficient to give standing to raise issues concerning the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause" to those persons directly affected by alleged violations of the First Amendment. See Association of Data Processing Serv. Orgs., Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 154, 90 S.Ct. 827, 830, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970) (interpreting Schempp ). In Valley Forge the Supreme Court confirmed that a proper Establishment Clause plaintiff must allege direct injury, like that experienced by the Schempp plaintiffs, who "were subjected to unwelcome religious exercises or were forced to assume special burdens to avoid them." Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 487 n. 22, 102 S.Ct. at 766-67 n. 22 (discussing Schempp ).

Thus a mere abstract objection to unconstitutional conduct is not sufficient to confer standing. As the Court held in Valley Forge, "the psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct with which one disagrees ... is not an injury sufficient to confer standing under Art. III." Id. at 485, 102 S.Ct. at 765. Accordingly, a citizen of Omaha, Nebraska who finds a religious symbol in the Haywood County Courthouse to be offensive in the abstract would not have standing to challenge it. The "injury" to our hypothetical Omaha plaintiff partakes of a generalized grievance, based on nothing more than each citizen's "shared individuated right to a government that 'shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.' " Id. at 470, 102 S.Ct. at 757. The Supreme Court in Valley Forge could not have been clearer in its refusal to extend standing to such plaintiffs, fearing that such a lax standing requirement "would convert the judicial process into 'no more than a vehicle for the vindication of the value interests of concerned bystanders' " or turn the courts "into judicial versions of college debating forums." Id. at 473, 102 S.Ct. at 759 (quot...