Ayon v. Gourley, Civ. A. No. 97-S-1936.

• Decision Date: 15 July 1998
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 97-S-1936.
• Citation: 47 F.Supp.2d 1246
• Parties: John Dean AYON, Plaintiff, v. Reverend Marshall GOURLEY, Archdiocese of Denver, and Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, His Predecessors and Successors, as Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Colorado

47 F.Supp.2d 1246

John Dean AYON, Plaintiff, v. Reverend Marshall GOURLEY, Archdiocese of Denver, and Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, His Predecessors and Successors, as Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 97-S-1936.

United States District Court, D. Colorado.

July 15, 1998.

Windle Turley, Dallas, TX, Juanita June Benetin, Juanita Benetin, PC, Denver, CO, Joyce Ann Seelen, Seelen & Associates, Denver, CO, for John Dean Ayon, plaintiff.

Gary B. Blum, Walter N. Houghtaling, Christina L. Lindsay, Long & Jaudon, Denver, CO, for Marshall Gourley, Reverend, defendant.

Charles Goldberg, James M. Lyons, Samuel Martin Ventola, Rothgerber, Johnson & Lyons, LLP, United States District Court, Denver, CO, for Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver, Charles J. Chaput, defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

SPARR, District Judge.

THIS MATTER came on for hearing on June 19, 1998 on Defendants Archdiocese of Denver's and Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput's Motion to Dismiss or for Summary Judgment, filed October 22, 1997, and Defendant Marshall Gourley's Motion for Summary Judgment, filed October 24, 1997. The Court has heard the arguments of counsel and has reviewed the motions, the response, the replies, and the applicable law. While the motions were directed to Plaintiff's original complaint, the Court and the parties spent time at the hearing clarifying the Motion for Leave to Amend the Complaint and claims that resulted from that amendment. Consequently, the arguments on Defendants' motions were directed to the claims that are pending in the Amended Complaint.

Defendants Archdiocese of Denver and Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput (hereinafter "Archdiocese Defendants") move for dismissal or summary judgment on the claims against them in Plaintiff's Amended Complaint on the basis of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the statute of limitations. Defendant Gourley moves for summary judgment on the basis of the statute of limitations. Although it appears that the First Amendment issue could be dealt with under either the dismissal or summary judgment standard, the Court chooses to address it under the former. The statute of limitations issue, which must necessarily be considered under the summary judgment standard, will be addressed subsequently.

Motion to Dismiss

"Dismissal pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) requires a legal determination that plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of its claim that would entitle it to relief." Cayman Exploration Corp. v. United Gas Pipe Line Co., 873 F.2d 1357, 1359 (10th Cir.1989). "[T]he complaint must allege facts sufficient, if they are proved, to allow the court to conclude that claimant has a legal right to relief." Perington Wholesale, Inc. v. Burger King Corp., 631 F.2d 1369, 1373 (10th Cir.1979). A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted shall be decided on the sufficiency of the four corners of the complaint alone. Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b).

First Amendment

The Archdiocese Defendants argue that both the Free Exercise clause and the Establishment clause of the First Amendment bar consideration of Plaintiff's claims against them. They argue that the former's prohibition on government interference with the free exercise of religion as well as the latter's prohibition of government's excessive entanglement with religion both require dismissal of all the claims against them. It is Defendants' contention that any consideration of claims which involve matters relating to a religious organization's management of its ministers would violate the right to church autonomy.

In opposition to Defendant's First Amendment argument, Plaintiff relies on Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990)[Smith] and its exception for `neutral principles.' Plaintiff argues that that exception provides that while a party has a right to believe and profess whatever religious doctrine he or she chooses, there is no right to act in accordance with those beliefs if such actions would violate secular law. He contends that his claims are purely secular as they involve the general civil law against sexually abusing children. Plaintiff cites numerous Colorado state cases such as Moses v. Diocese of Colorado, 863 P.2d 310 (Colo.1993), Destefano v. Grabrian, 763 P.2d 275 (Colo.1988) and DeBose v. Bear Valley Church of Christ, 890 P.2d 214 (Colo.App.1994) in support of his argument that the First Amendment does not bar his claims.

As the Archdiocese Defendants have pointed out, caselaw from the state of Colorado on the First Amendment does not constrain this Court in any way. The fact that the Colorado state courts have taken an extremely expansive view of the claims allowed against religious organizations is not even particularly persuasive in light of the analysis by federal courts on this issue.¹

Furthermore, while Smith's neutral principles exception is valid, it is not very helpful under the facts as alleged in this case. Plaintiff's claims rely on general tort liability theories, which do not fit the description of "valid and neutral law[s] of general applicability." Smith, 494 U.S. at 879, 110 S.Ct. 1595. The law at issue in Smith was a straightforward prohibition on the possession of certain specified controlled substances. Consequently, the law in that case does not translate well to a situation in which the Defendants are charged with outrageous conduct and negligent hiring and/or supervision.² Those claims, by definition, require much more subjective judgment on the appropriateness of the conduct than the across-the-board prohibition in Smith.

Consequently, the Court must focus its analysis on the claims against these Defendants and move directly to the issue of whether considering those claims would violate either the Free Exercise clause or the Establishment clause.

"It is well-settled that when a court is required to interpret Canon Law or internal church policies and practices, the First Amendment is violated because such judicial inquiry would constitute excessive government entanglement with religion." Isely v. Capuchin Province, 880 F.Supp. 1138, 1150 (E.D.Mich.1995), citing Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976) and numerous other cases. "The foregoing cases make clear that any inquiry into the decision of who should be permitted to become or remain a priest necessarily would involve prohibited excessive entanglement with religion." Id.

"[A]ny inquiry into the policies and practices of the Church Defendants in hiring or supervising their clergy raises the same kind of First Amendment problems discussed above, which might involve the Court in making sensitive judgments about the propriety of the Church Defendants' supervision in light of their religious beliefs." Schmidt v. Bishop, 779 F.Supp. 321, 332 (S.D.N.Y.1991). The Court has also considered Doe v. Hartz, 970 F.Supp. 1375, 1431 (N.D.Iowa 1997) which found that "who may become or remain a priest must, almost inevitably involve an inquiry into church doctrine or policies, barring a negligent hiring or retention claim on First Amendment grounds." That court also held that it was premature to dismiss the negligent supervision claim prior to the summary judgment stage because the pleadings were inadequate to establish excessive entanglement.

In addition to the Colorado caselaw with which the Court has already dealt, Plaintiff relies on Smith v. O'Connell, 986 F.Supp. 73 (D.R.I.1997). That court held that it had jurisdiction over the negligent supervision claim as it could be decided based on neutral tort law principles of general application without the need to interpret religious doctrine. It also held that the Free Exercise Clause was not violated by the exercise of such jurisdiction.

The Court notes that the Smith v. O'Connell opinion dealt with motions to dismiss which were not directed at specific counts in the voluminous complaints. Consequently, the court dealt with what it perceived to be the plaintiffs "core claims." Id. at 75. With regard to the Free Exercise Clause, the Court found that the defendants had not established that religious doctrine would have prevented them from exercising reasonable care to preclude the sexual abuse of children. In dealing with the Establishment Clause, the court again reiterated that the motions were not directed at particular claims but found that it was "unlikely" that exercising jurisdiction over the case would cause excessive entanglement because no interpretation of religious doctrine appeared necessary. Id. at 81.

As the cases cited make clear, there are two issues with regard to the First Amendment. The first is whether allowing these claims to go forward would interfere with the Archdiocese Defendants' right to free exercise of their religion. The second is most commonly stated as whether these claims can be resolved without interpreting religious procedures or beliefs. Both issues are relevant to both the negligent hiring/supervision and outrageous conduct claims. It does appear though that the analysis of the outrageous conduct claim mirrors that of the negligent supervision claim.

The precise basis of Plaintiff's outrageous conduct claim against the Archdiocese Defendants is unclear from the Amended Complaint. The only statement that could possibly be construed as stating a basis for that claim, and the sentence cited by Plaintiff's counsel at the hearing, is the first sentence of paragraph 11 which states, "In 1986 or 1987, the Archdiocese was told that Father Gourley had sexually abused a boy."³ While this may constitute a separate claim for purposes of the Amended Complaint, the analysis of this claim for First Amendment purposes would appear to be very similar to that for the negligent supervision claim. The difference, of course,...