Goodall by Goodall v. Stafford County School Bd., 94-1586

• Decision Date: 27 July 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-1586,94-1586
• Citation: 60 F.3d 168
• Parties: , 101 Ed. Law Rep. 676 Matthew B. GOODALL, an infant, by his father and next friend Robert B. GOODALL; Robert B. Goodall; Kathleen N. Goodall, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. STAFFORD COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant-Appellee. Virginia School Boards Association, Amicus Curiae.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 168

60 F.3d 168

64 USLW 2092, 101 Ed. Law Rep. 676

Matthew B. GOODALL, an infant, by his father and next friend Robert B. GOODALL; Robert B. Goodall; Kathleen N. Goodall, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. STAFFORD COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant-Appellee Virginia School Boards Association, Amicus Curiae.

No. 94-1586.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Jan. 31, 1995.

Decided July 27, 1995.

ARGUED: Robert Brandt Goodall, Easterling & Goodall, Stafford, VA, for appellants. Kathleen Shepherd Mehfoud, Hazel & Thomas, P.C., Richmond, VA, for appellee. ON BRIEF: Vernon E. Inge, Jr., Hazel & Thomas, P.C., Richmond, VA, for appellee. Scott S. Cairns, Kimberly S. Hugo, McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe, Richmond, VA, for amicus curiae.

Before ERVIN, Chief Judge, and MURNAGHAN and MOTZ, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge MURNAGHAN wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge ERVIN and Judge MOTZ joined.

OPINION

MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge:

Matthew B. Goodall, an infant, and his parents, Robert B. Goodall and Kathleen N. Goodall, brought an action against the Stafford County School Board in Virginia ("the County") to compel the County to provide Matthew with a cued speech transliterator ¹ in his private sectarian school. They alleged that having to pay for their own transliterator constituted a substantial burden on their free exercise of religion, which amounted to a violation of both the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. Secs. 2000bb to 2000bb-4. They further claimed that the burden imposed on them was not justified by a compelling interest on the part of the County. Because we find that no substantial burden was imposed on the Goodalls' free exercise of religion, we affirm the district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law in favor of the County.

I.

Matthew Goodall was rendered profoundly hearing impaired by an attack of meningitis at the age of three-and-a-half. Up until 1984, Stafford County provided Matthew with special education services in its public schools at no cost. However, in 1984, Matthew's parents placed him in a private religious school. At the time the Goodalls filed suit in the instant case, Matthew was enrolled in Fredericksburg Christian School, located outside of Stafford County in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Stafford County offers a free public education to Matthew at its public schools, as well as the services of an interpreter, speech and language services, and learning disability services at no charge to his parents. When the County refused to provide a cued speech transliterator to Matthew at his private religious school, the Goodalls supplied the necessary services to him in other ways. Specifically, Matthew's mother provided Matthew with cued speech services for his sixth, seventh, and eighth grade years, after which the Goodalls, at their own expense, hired someone else to provide the services. The cost of such an interpreter has varied from year to year; it amounted to approximately $14,000 during the 1993-94 school year. ² The Goodalls seek reimbursement of the expenses already incurred, as well as the County's acknowledgment of its obligation to provide any transliteration services that would be required by Matthew during his remaining time at Fredericksburg Christian School.

The Goodalls appeared before us once previously pressing their claims, but were unsuccessful. In 1988, the Goodalls brought an action against Stafford County, challenging the County's refusal to provide a cued speech transliterator for Matthew at Fredericksburg Christian School. Summary judgment was granted against the Goodalls at the district court level, and we affirmed on appeal. See Goodall v. Stafford County Sch. Bd., 930 F.2d 363 (4th Cir.) (Goodall I ), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 864, 112 S.Ct. 188, 116 L.Ed.2d 149 (1991). In Goodall I, we held that the County's provision of a cued speech transliterator at a private religious school would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and that the County therefore had a compelling interest for refusing to provide or to pay for the service. Id. at 371. In 1993, however, the Supreme Court decided in Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills Sch. Dist., --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 2462, 125 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993), that the Establishment Clause did not bar a school district from furnishing a child with a sign language interpreter in a sectarian school under a program that provided benefits to disabled children in a religion-neutral manner. Id. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2469.

After the Zobrest Court overruled our Establishment Clause holding in Goodall I, the Goodalls filed the instant suit. They now assert that the County's refusal to provide Matthew with a cued speech transliterator in his private school imposes a substantial burden on their free exercise of religion, ³ and that the County has no compelling interest for imposing such a burden. The district court below decided that no substantial burden had been imposed on the Goodalls by the County's refusal to provide Matthew with a cued speech transliterator. Finding no cognizable burden, the district court considered it unnecessary to examine the County's evidence regarding its interest, and granted judgment as a matter of law to the County at the close of the Goodalls' case, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(c). The Goodalls have appealed.

II.

The Goodalls raise both a constitutional claim under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and a statutory claim under RFRA. ⁴ The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which is made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that "Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. U.S. Const. amend. I. While the Free Exercise Clause commands that the government may not pass laws that stifle religious belief or practice, see Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 2222, 124 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993), a law that is religion-neutral and generally applicable does not violate the Free Exercise Clause even if it incidentally affects religious practice. Employment Div., Dep't of Human Resources of Or. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 878-79, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 1599-1600, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990) see also Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2226 ("[O]ur cases establish the general proposition that a law that is neutral and of general applicability need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest even if the law has the incidental effect of burdening a particular religious practice."); American Life League, Inc. v. Reno, 47 F.3d 642, 654 (4th Cir.1995) ("[A] neutral, generally applicable law does not offend the Free Exercise Clause, even if the law has an incidental effect on religious practice."), petition for cert. filed (May 12, 1995). In Smith, the Supreme Court held that a free exercise challenge to a generally applicable law that incidentally affects the practice of religion should not be analyzed under the strict approach applicable to unemployment compensation cases, exemplified in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963). ⁵ See Smith, 494 U.S. at 883-85, 110 S.Ct. at 1602-04.

Congress enacted RFRA in 1993 in response to the Supreme Court's holding in Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876. In RFRA, Congress explicitly reinstated the application of the compelling interest test set out in Sherbert, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965, and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972), to "all cases where free exercise of religion is substantially burdened...." 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000bb(b)(1). In particular, RFRA provides that government "shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b) of this section." Id. at Sec. 2000bb-1(a). Subsection (b) deems permissible a substantial burden on religion where the government's policy is justified by a compelling governmental interest and is the "least restrictive means" of furthering that governmental interest. RFRA thereby creates a statutory cause of action for a plaintiff whose free exercise of religion is substantially burdened by the application of a law or policy that is religion-neutral on its face. See id. Sec. 2000bb(b)(2).

In analyzing a claim under RFRA, we look first at whether a substantial burden has been imposed on the exercise of sincerely-held religious beliefs, ⁶ and then determine whether the state can justify the imposition of that burden. See 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000bb-1(a), (b). Thus, if the Goodalls cannot show that their exercise of religion is substantially burdened by the County's policy, the County is not required to come forth with proof of its interest. See Werner v. McCotter, 49 F.3d 1476, 1480 (10th Cir.1995) (finding that under RFRA, only governmental regulation that places a substantial burden on a plaintiff's religious activity must be justified by a compelling state interest), cert. denied --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 2625, 132 L.Ed.2d 866 (1995). Since RFRA does not purport to create a new substantial burden test, we may look to pre-RFRA cases in order to assess the burden on the plaintiffs for their RFRA claim.

It is well established that there is no substantial burden placed on an individual's free exercise of religion where a law or policy merely "operates so as to make the practice of [the individual's] religious beliefs more expensive." Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 605, 81 S.Ct. 1144, 1147, 6 L.Ed.2d 563 (1961) (plurality opinion). In Braunfeld, members of the Orthodox Jewish faith challenged a law in Pennsylvania which prohibited the retail sale of certain items on Sundays. The plaintiffs were merchants who, before the...