Donaldson v. Farrakhan
| Decision Date | 02 October 2001 |
| Citation | 762 NE 2d 835,436 Mass. 94 |
| Parties | MARCELINE DONALDSON & another v. LOUIS FARRAKHAN & others. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Present (SITTING AT SALEM): MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, SOSMAN, & COADY, JJ.
Gretchen Van Ness for the plaintiffs.
Denzil D. McKenzie (Wilbur P. Edwards, Jr., & Abdul Arif Muhammad with him) for the defendants.
The plaintiffs, Marceline Donaldson and Robert A. Bennett, claim the defendants, Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, Don Muhammad, and Muhammad's Mosque No. 11 (mosque) violated their civil rights under G. L. c. 272, §§ 92A and 98, when Marceline Donaldson was refused admittance to the Strand Theatre (theatre) on the night of a speech by Louis Farrakhan.3 The defendants moved for a directed verdict at the close of the plaintiffs' case, which the judge granted. The plaintiffs appealed. We transferred the case to this court on our own motion. We conclude that the plaintiffs failed to produce sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude by a preponderance of the evidence that the theatre was a place of public accommodation on the night in question. We further conclude that, in any event, the application of the public accommodation laws to compel Louis Farrakhan to address women in a mosque's men's meeting would impermissibly interfere with the defendants' rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. We affirm.
I. Facts. The relevant facts are as follows. On March 10, 1994, the plaintiffs were at their antiques shop in Cambridge when they learned that Farrakhan was to speak that evening at the theatre in the Dorchester section of Boston. The plaintiffs believed that they learned of the event through the media, but could not identify the source, or whether it was by way of advertisement or news report. The plaintiffs, who had no prior contact with Farrakhan, were interested in hearing his message. They closed their shop early that evening, and drove to the theatre.
As the plaintiffs approached the theatre, they noticed people gathering outside. They proceeded toward the door where a line was forming; Donaldson was in front of Bennett. She was ushered aside by a security official who told her that no women were allowed into the theatre. The same official waved Bennett inside, but Bennett stopped when the security official barred Donaldson's entry. Bennett tried to explain that he and Donaldson were together, but the official simply reiterated that no women were allowed to enter the theatre. The plaintiffs were upset by the incident and decided to return home.
The plaintiffs filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (commission) against Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, Don Muhammad, the mosque, and the M. Harriet McCormack Center for the Arts (McCormack Center), the theatre's management company.4 On September 29, 1995, the commission found probable cause to believe that the defendants had committed an unlawful practice in violation of the Commonwealth's antidiscrimination laws. The plaintiffs filed their complaint against the defendants in the Superior Court on February 22, 1995.
II. Discussion. The standard applied to a motion for a directed verdict is identical to that applied to a motion for summary judgment for most purposes. See Kaitz v. Foreign Motors, Inc., 25 Mass. App. Ct. 198, 200 (1987), and cases cited. The judge must determine, on viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, whether a reasonable inference could be drawn in favor of the nonmoving party, or if the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. See Alholm v. Wareham, 371 Mass. 621, 627 (1976); Campbell v. Thornton, 368 Mass. 528, 535 (1975); W. Oliver Tripp Co. v. American Hoechst Corp., 34 Mass. App. Ct. 744, 751 (1993). Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252 (1986).
The defendants' memorandum in support of their motion for a directed verdict asserted that the plaintiffs failed to introduce sufficient evidence to establish (1) any harm to Bennett, (2) any liability on the part of Farrakhan, Don Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam for the conduct of the mosque, (3) that the mosque barred Donaldson from entry into the theatre, (4) that the men's meeting constituted a public accommodation, and (5) that the defendants coerced the plaintiffs not to attend the meeting. The defendants also asserted that the application of the public accommodation law to require the admittance of women to the men's meeting would violate their constitutional rights to free speech and religion. Finally, the defendants averred that the plaintiffs failed to establish any damages.
The judge who granted the motion ruled that the theatre was not a place of public accommodation at the time the speech was held. We affirm.
A. Sufficiency of the evidence. The public accommodation statutes, G. L. c. 272, §§ 92A and 98, prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, among other factors, in relation to the admission of or treatment of any person in a place of public accommodation. General Laws c. 272, § 92A, defines a place of public accommodation as "any place, whether licensed or unlicensed, which is open to and accepts or solicits the patronage of the general public," and includes "an auditorium, theatre, music hall, meeting place or hall, including common halls of buildings."
The plaintiffs were required to submit sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find by a preponderance of the evidence that the theatre was a place of public accommodation on the night in question. The plaintiffs attempted to meet this burden through the admission of evidence to indicate that the meeting on March 10, 1994, was not a religious men's meeting of the mosque, but a community event open to the public. The judge was warranted in concluding that the plaintiffs did not meet their burden.
Viewed in the light most favorable to them, the plaintiffs rely on the following evidence. The theatre is owned by the city of Boston and is leased to various groups and entities. A week prior to the event, on behalf of the mosque, Virginia Muhammad signed a lease with the McCormack Center. The lease stated that the use would be for a "[m]en's meeting on black on black crime, violence, and drugs in communities of color." The mosque was the only party signatory of the lease. There was evidence that the mosque was the sole producer of the men's meeting, and that the mosque agreed to provide its own security for the event.5
Prior to the event, Geraldine Guardino, the executive director of the McCormack Center, expressed concern to the mosque about whether women would be admitted to the men's meeting on March 10, 1994. She telephoned the mosque and spoke with Virginia Muhammad and later with Don Muhammad about whether women were to be admitted. Guardino testified that Don Muhammad assured her that women would be admitted, and that she sent a registered letter to Muhammad to remind him of his commitment.
Don Muhammad testified that the meeting was an expanded section of the mosque's weekly religious men's meeting. Because women do not attend those weekly meetings, he said, the event was for men only. He said he did not assure Guardino that women would be admitted, but rather told her that it was a men's meeting and that women would be admitted only if there was space to accommodate them after all the men had been admitted and seated.
Craig Engerman, a member of the mosque and director of the men's class, was the head of security for the March 10 men's meeting. He testified that he understood the event to be a men's meeting of the mosque, and that Don Muhammad did not give him any specific instruction with respect to admitting women to the event. All the members of the security detail were male members of the mosque, and Engerman did not discuss with them whether women would be admitted. As members of the security team, they knew their expected role for a men's meeting.
The plaintiffs admitted videotape evidence depicting a member of the mosque security team directing women to form a separate line outside the theatre. A second admitted videotape excerpt depicted Engerman announcing to the crowd outside the theatre that the meeting was for "the brothers," meaning men. The plaintiffs also introduced recorded excerpts of Farrakhan's speech indicating that he was aware women had been excluded from the meeting.
The plaintiffs point to the ambiguous testimony of Craig Engerman. He testified that, when Farrakhan speaks, it is a religious event because he is a minister. The plaintiffs' trial counsel then impeached him with his deposition testimony in which he stated he did not perceive the March 10, 1994, event to be a religious event. Engerman discussed the Farrakhan speech as an outgrowth of a prior event on February 12, 1994, bringing men together at a dinner to discuss similar issues of violence and drugs in the community. The earlier dinner event was organized by a group known as the "1000 Black Men Coalition," and was sponsored by a number of community organizations both religious and secular. Engerman testified that the idea of having Farrakhan speak on these issues came from the same coalition. He then brought the idea to the attention of Don Muhammad to see whether Farrakhan would be available to speak, and as a result of Don Muhammad's efforts, Farrakhan agreed to do so. Engerman's testimony to the effect that the idea for the event arose at a meeting with other secular groups does not change the fact that...
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