Dillard v. City of Springdale
| Docket Number | 5:17-CV-5089 |
| Decision Date | 09 February 2022 |
| Parties | JILL DILLARD; JESSA SEEWALD; JINGER VUOLO; and JOY DUGGAR PLAINTIFFS v. CITY OF SPRINGDALE, ARKANSAS; WASHINGTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS; KATHY O'KELLEY, in her individual and official capacities; ERNEST CATE, in his individual and official capacities; and RICK HOYT, in his individual and official capacities DEFENDANTS |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Arkansas |
Before the Court are two ripe Motions for Summary Judgment. The first (Doc. 137) was filed by Washington County, Arkansas and Rick Hoyt, in his individual and official capacities (hereinafter, “the Washington County Defendants”). The second (Doc. 140) was filed by the City of Springdale, Arkansas; Kathy O'Kelley, in her individual and official capacities; and Ernest Cate, in his individual and official capacities (hereinafter, “the Springdale Defendants”). For the reasons explained below, both Motions are GRANTED..[1]
Most of the material facts relevant to the issues on summary judgment are undisputed by the parties, 1F[2] and the Court has relied on those agreed facts in resolving the dispositive motions. However, the parties obviously dispute some of the remaining material facts, and those are stated and considered here in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, who are the non-movants on summary judgment.
The Plaintiffs are Jill Dillard, Jessa Seewald, Jinger Vuolo, and Joy Duggar (now Forsythe). They are adult sisters who hail from a very large, religious family. Though they are now married with families of their own, they once shared the last name “Duggar” and lived in a household with their mother, father, and many siblings. This case involves what happened to Plaintiffs when they were children.
From approximately March of 2002 until March of 2003, the Plaintiffs were sexually abused by their brother, Joshua. He was 14 years old when the abuse began and 15 years old when it ended. At the time of the abuse, the Plaintffs ranged in age from 5 to 11 years old. Their parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, discovered the abuse but did not report it to the police or any state agency. Instead, they decided to keep it a secret and discipline Joshua privately. Unfortunately, whatever Mr. and Mrs. Duggar tried to do to stop Joshua's behavior did not work, and by 2003, they turned to their closest friends, Jim and Bobye Holt, for advice and support. The Holts and Duggars were leaders in their small religious community, which was composed of several families who shared the same beliefs and met at one another's homes for church services, which they called “gatherings.” Once Mr. and Mrs. Duggar told Mr. and Mrs. Holt about Joshua's repeated abuse of his sisters, the relationship between the two families became strained.
For the next several years, it appears very few people outside of the Holt family knew the Duggars' secret. However, in 2003, the Holts' daughter, Kaeleigh, wrote a summary of what she had heard from her parents about the abuse in a letter to her favorite author. Instead of mailing the letter, she placed it in a book, which she left on her bookshelf. There the secret remained until 2006, when Kaeleigh loaned the book to a friend and fellow church member. Kaeleigh's friend found the letter and shared its contents with her parents. From that point on, the Duggars' family secret spread by word of mouth to the other members of their close-knit church community. It is unknown exactly how many church members learned of the abuse, but the news caused factions to form within the church, and certain church members evidently disagreed with how the matter was being handled.
On December 7, 2006, the Arkansas Department of Human Services Hotline received two tips that Joshua had molested his sisters. The first tip came from an anonymous caller to the Hotline. The second tip came from Harpo Studios, the producer of Oprah Winfrey's talk show. It seems the Duggars had caught the attention of the media at around that time because of their unusually large family. They were scheduled to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show, and they had traveled to Chicago to record an episode. Harpo Studios received an anonymous email warning that the Duggars were “not what they seem[ed] to be” because Joshua had sexually abused his sisters. (Doc. 141-9, p. 20).[3] Harpo Studios faxed this email to the Arkansas Department of Human Services Hotline, and the same day, Sergeant Darrell Hignite of the Springdale Police Department opened a police investigation into the abuse allegations. Joshua was 18 years old at the time, but Plaintiffs were still minors. Jill, the oldest Plaintiff, was15 years old, and Joy, the youngest, was 9 years old. Sergeant Hignite contacted Detective Garry Conner of the Washington County Sheriff's Department to request that the County assist the City in the investigation.
State Police Investigator Whitney Taylor called the Duggars and asked them to bring their children to the Children's Safety Center in Springdale to be interviewed about the Hotline reports. According to the redacted copies of the Springdale Police Report and the Washington County Incident Report, the Duggar family arrived at the Children's Safety Center on December 12, 2006, and Mr. and Mrs. Duggar, Joshua, and the Plaintiffs were interviewed by Investigator Taylor and Sergeant Hignite. Plaintiffs testified in their depositions that these investigators assured them that the contents of their interviews would remain confidential. The narrative summaries of each interview appear in the Springdale Police Report. See Doc. 141-9, pp. 21-37. Only the summary of the interview with Mr. and Mrs. Duggar appears in the Washington County Incident Report (Doc. 152-1). According to the Springdale Police Report, after the Duggar family was interviewed, Sergeant Hignite submitted a Family in Need of Services (“FINS”) Affidavit to the Washington County Prosecutor's Office with instructions to open a FINS case. Id. at p. 39. On January 10, 2007, the Washington County Prosecutor filed the FINS petition in the Juvenile Court of Washington County under case number J2007-38. Sergeant Hignite's affidavit and the 33-page Springdale Police Report were attached to the petition and became part of the juvenile court record. No. criminal charges were ever brought against Joshua, nor were his sisters removed from the family home.
The following year, 2008, the Duggars began starring in a reality television series called “17 Kids and Counting.” The name of the show was later changed to “18 Kids and Counting” and then “19 Kids and Counting” as the family grew. Once the show began airing nationwide, Mr. and Mrs. Duggar and all their children became minor celebrities.
On May 15, 2015, the City of Springdale and Washington County each received a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request seeking all files, documents, notes, and recordings mentioning Joshua Duggar, his parents, or any of the addresses where the family had lived over the years. (Docs. 141-10 & 152-15). The requests had been sent by an Arkansas attorney named Abtin Mehdizadegan. He was representing a tabloid magazine called In Touch Weekly (though that fact was not revealed in the FOIA request). Neither the City of Springdale nor Washington County responded immediately to Mr. Mehdizadegan's request. In fact, both departments lost track of it and did not address it for several days. Under the Arkansas FOIA, governmental agencies typically have three business days to respond to a request. Ark. Code Ann. § 25-19-105(e).
On May 19, 2015, In Touch Weekly posted a “teaser” article on its website entitled, “‘19 Kids and Counting' Son Named in Underage Sex Probe.” The identities of Joshua's victims were not revealed directly or indirectly in the article. Also on May 19, Chief O'Kelley was first told about Mr. Mehdizadegan's FOIA request. She obtained a copy of the Springdale Police Report on the Duggar family so she could review it. That same day, Sergeant Hignite of the Springdale Police Department received an email from NBC
Universal inquiring about a police report on Joshua Duggar. Sergeant Hignite forwarded the email to Chief O'Kelley. She responded by email at 7:54 p.m., stating, “Oh Good Lord . . . we will soon be in the tabloids!” (Doc. 152-6, p. 2). Then, at 7:58 p.m., she sent the following email to Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse:
HERE IS AN INTERESTING TURN OF EVENTS FOR THE DUGGER [sic] FAMILY-WE ARE PREPAING TO REDACT AND RELEASE THE INVESTIGATION BUT THIS IS A NEW TWIST TO THE ORIGINAL REQUEST-NOW WE ARE HEADING TO THE TABLOID NEWS!
(Doc. 152-7, p. 2). Chief O'Kelley also forwarded the email from Sergeant Hignite to separate Defendant Ernest Cate, who was-and still is-Springdale's City Attorney. Chief O'Kelley asked Mr. Cate to be available to have “a conversation about this” the following day because she was “preparing to release the report . . . .” Id.
On the morning of May 20, 2015, Mr. Cate and Chief O'Kelley met to discuss the FOIA request. Mr. Cate agreed the police report should be released, provided that the names of the juvenile victims were redacted. He did, however, seem to harbor some doubt about his decision-at least initially-because he “proceeded that afternoon to obtain as much legal advice and opinions as was [sic] possible on the FOIA Request.” (Doc. 141-1, p 4).[4] He asked Sarah Sparkman, the Deputy City Attorney, for her opinion, and she advised that it would be appropriate to redact the child victims' names and release the report. Mr. Cate also asked Terra Stephenson, the juvenile prosecutor at the time, and based on what he told her about the case, her opinion was that the report...
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