Doe v. Porter

• Decision Date: 07 June 2004
• Docket Number: No. 02-5316.,No. 02-5823.,02-5316.,02-5823.
• Citation: 370 F.3d 558
• Parties: John DOE, Individually; Mary Roe, Individually and as Natural Mother of A. Roe, B. Roe, and C. Roe, her minor daughters; and Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Sue PORTER, Individually and as Superintendent of the Rhea County School System; Rhea County Board of Education; Jimmy Wilkey, Individually and as County Executive for Rhea County, Tennessee; and Rhea County, Tennessee, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 558

370 F.3d 558

John DOE, Individually; Mary Roe, Individually and as Natural Mother of A. Roe, B. Roe, and C. Roe, her minor daughters; and Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Sue PORTER, Individually and as Superintendent of the Rhea County School System; Rhea County Board of Education; Jimmy Wilkey, Individually and as County Executive for Rhea County, Tennessee; and Rhea County, Tennessee, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 02-5316.

No. 02-5823.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: December 11, 2003.

Decided and Filed: June 7, 2004.

Joseph Howell Johnston (briefed), R. Stephen Doughty (briefed), Alvin L. Harris (argued and briefed), Weed, Hubbard, Berry Doughty, Nashville, TN, for Plaintiffs-Appellees in 02-5316 and 02-5823.

Chareles W. Cagle (briefed), Lewis, King, Krieg, Waldrop & Catron, Michael E. Evans (argued and briefed), Davies, Humphreys & Evans, Nashville, TN, for Defendant-Appellant 02-5316 and 02-5823.

Before: COLE and CLAY, Circuit Judges; QUIST, District Judge.^*

OPINION

R. GUY COLE, JR., Circuit Judge.

Defendants-Appellants Superintendent Sue Porter ("Superintendent") and the Rhea County Board of Education ("Board of Education" or "Board") appeal the district court's grant of summary judgment for Plaintiffs-Appellees John Doe, Mary Roe, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc. ("FFRF"). The district court: (1) granted the Plaintiffs' motion to proceed pseudonymously; (2) held that Plaintiffs had standing to bring suit against the Board; (3) enjoined, as a violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, the Board's allowing religious instruction in the Rhea County public schools; and (4) awarded attorneys' fees. For the reasons below, we AFFIRM.

I. Background

For several years the Board of Education has allowed staff and students from Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee to conduct a program known as the Bible Education Ministry ("BEM") in the county's public elementary schools. Bryan College refers to itself as a Christian school, whose motto is "Christ Above All." The College's mission statement reads, "Educating students to become servants of Christ to make a difference in today's world." Bryan College students and faculty are required to subscribe to a "Statement of Belief," which reads:

We believe: that the holy Bible, composed of the Old and New Testaments, is of final and supreme authority in faith and life, and, being inspired by God, is inerrant in the original writings; in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, this Trinity being one God, eternally existing in three persons; in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ; that he was born of the virgin Mary and begotten of the Holy Spirit; ... that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Savior that He was crucified for our sins, according to the Scriptures, as a voluntary representative and substitutionary sacrifice, and all who believe in Him and confess Him before men are justified on the grounds of His shed blood; in the resurrection of the crucified body of Jesus, in His ascension into Heaven, and in "that blessed hope," the personal return to this earth of Jesus Christ, and He shall reign forever; in the bodily resurrection of all persons, judgment to come, the everlasting blessedness of the saved, and the everlasting punishment of the lost.

BEM's volunteer instructors were never employed by the Board. The BEM classes took place for thirty minutes, once a week, during the school day, in three county schools.

Plaintiffs brought this action, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking to enjoin the Board's practice of permitting the teaching of the Christian Bible as religious truth as a violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. Following summary judgment in Plaintiffs' favor, Defendants appealed.

II. Analysis

A. The District Court's Protective Order

The Board asserts that the district court erred by granting Plaintiffs' motion for a protective order allowing them to proceed pseudonymously. As a general matter, a complaint must state the names of all parties. Fed.R.Civ.P. 10(a). However, we may excuse plaintiffs from identifying themselves in certain circumstances. Several considerations determine whether a plaintiff's privacy interests substantially outweigh the presumption of open judicial proceedings. They include: (1) whether the plaintiffs seeking anonymity are suing to challenge governmental activity; (2) whether prosecution of the suit will compel the plaintiffs to disclose information "of the utmost intimacy"; (3) whether the litigation compels plaintiffs to disclose an intention to violate the law, thereby risking criminal prosecution; and (4) whether the plaintiffs are children. Doe v. Stegall, 653 F.2d 180, 185-86 (5th Cir.1981). We review the district court's decision to grant a protective order for an abuse of discretion. Samad v. Jenkins, 845 F.2d 660, 663 (6th Cir.1988).

This suit — challenging a government activity — forces Plaintiffs to reveal their beliefs about a particularly sensitive topic that could subject them to considerable harassment. "[R]eligion is perhaps the quintessentially private matter. Although they do not confess either illegal acts or purposes, the [plaintiffs] have, by filing suit, made revelations about their personal beliefs and practices that are shown to have invited an opprobrium analogous to the infamy associated with criminal behavior." Stegall, 653 F.2d at 186. For instance, in a letter to the editor of a local paper, one Nancy Rogers wrote:

[Y]ou are [] cowards because you won't give us your name. You know the people in Rhea County would come up to your face and tell you what we think of you. I would love to come face to face with you because yes I would tell you what I thought of you and I would let my sons tell you too. You have hurt my sons and I will not let no one [sic] hurt one of my children. We might not know you but someone higher does [,] and yes you will answer to him.

Indeed, in an article about the lawsuit, the principal of Rhea County High School stated that if he had known the person challenging the BEM, he "would have tried to alert him ... I'd have said: `Look do you want to cause your family trouble? This is a rural, conservative place, and very emotional about religion. Attack religion and crusades begin. But you need to follow your own conscience.' "

Further, this case is brought on behalf of very young children, to whom we grant a heightened protection. Stegall, 653 F.2d at 186. ("The gravity of the danger posed by the threats of retaliation against the [plaintiffs] for filing this lawsuit must also be assessed in light of the special vulnerability of these child-plaintiffs.").¹

The Board also asserts that the district court's protective order hindered its ability to make full discovery, contending that the protective order allowed counsel to know only Plaintiffs' names, residency status, taxpayer information, and school enrollment status. This characterization of the district court's order is incorrect. Although the district court's protective order limited the scope of discovery as to other persons beyond Defendants' counsel of record, it placed no limitation on defense counsel's scope of discovery.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Board's characterization of the trial court's protective order is accurate, it is unclear how this would have hindered its preparation for trial. The only issue for which facts about Plaintiffs would have been crucial is the Board's challenge to Plaintiffs' standing to bring this action. Even under their narrow characterization of the trial court's order, Defendants would have been able to obtain all the information necessary to address the standing inquiry at trial: Plaintiffs' names, residency status, taxpayer information and school enrollment status. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing Plaintiffs to litigate pseudonymously.

B. Standing

The Board challenges the standing of John Doe, Mary Roe and FFRF. We review de novo the district court's conclusions of law with regard to standing. Brandywine, Inc. v. City of Richmond, 359 F.3d 830, 834 (6th Cir.2004). To establish standing under Article III of the Constitution, plaintiffs must demonstrate: (1) an injury in fact; (2) a causal connection between the injury and the challenged conduct; and (3) the injury's redressability by a favorable judicial decision. See id. at 834-35.

In sworn affidavits, submitted under seal, Doe and Roe assert that they are the parents of three children, two of whom are students at the Rhea County Elementary School. Their eldest daughter — identified as A. Roe — is in fifth grade, and their second daughter — B. Roe — is in first grade. Each parent testified that students from Bryan College regularly teach BEM classes in their daughters' respective classrooms. In other words, Plaintiffs' minor children have suffered a cognizable injury by being placed in the BEM classes; this injury is derived directly from the BEM classes; and the injury would be redressed by a decision in their favor.

As for FFRF: it may have associational standing to assert the rights of one or more of its members, even if it suffers no direct injury, if it can answer in the affirmative the three questions articulated in Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Commission, 432 U.S. 333, 343, 97 S.Ct. 2434, 53 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977):(1) whether a member has standing to sue in her own right; (2) whether the interests that it seeks to protect are germane to its purpose; and (3) whether the claim asserted or the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit.

First, John Doe and Mary Roe have standing to bring this action in their individual capacities, and are members of the FFRF. Second, one of FFRF's central purposes is to challenge practices that violate the separation of church and state. At the bottom of FFRF's...