Spacco v. Bridgewater School Dept.

• Decision Date: 06 June 1990
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 89-883-Wf.
• Citation: 739 F. Supp. 30
• Parties: Louis J. SPACCO, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. BRIDGEWATER SCHOOL DEPARTMENT, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

739 F. Supp. 30

Louis J. SPACCO, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. BRIDGEWATER SCHOOL DEPARTMENT, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 89-883-Wf.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

June 6, 1990.

Frances S. Cohen, Linda G. Bauer, Hill & Barlow, John Reinstein, Mass. Civ. Liberties Union, Boston, Mass., for plaintiffs.

Robert G. Clark, III, Brockton, Mass., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

WOLF, District Judge.

I. Summary

This case presents the question whether the lease of the St. Thomas Aquinas Parish Center from the Archbishop of Boston, and the manner of its use as a public elementary school violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The parties have submitted a proposed settlement that they have asked the court to enter as a Consent Decree in the form attached hereto. It is generally desirable that cases in this sensitive area concerning the relationship of church and state be resolved, on appropriate terms, by agreement. The terms of the proposed settlement are reasonable. Accordingly, the proposed Consent Decree will be entered as an Order of this court.

II. Procedural History

The present plaintiffs are Louis Spacco, III, an elementary school student in the Town of Bridgewater, Massachusetts and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Louis Spacco, Jr. In the summer of 1989, Louis Spacco, III was assigned to attend, for a second year, elementary school at the St. Thomas Aquinas Parish Center, which was leased by the Town of Bridgewater from the Archbishop of Boston, a corporation sole. Plaintiffs promptly filed a motion for preliminary injunction seeking the reassignment of Louis, III. They also requested a permanent injunction prohibiting the rental of the Parish Center, at least on the existing terms of the lease, as well as declaratory relief, costs and attorneys' fees.

After intensive briefing and hearings necessitated by the imminence of the new school year, this court found in August, 1989 that plaintiffs had established a reasonable likelihood that they would prevail on their claims that the terms of the lease and manner of the use of the Parish Center violated the "primary effect" and "entanglement" prongs of the test, established by the Supreme Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-13, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 2111, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971), for determining the constitutionality of conduct challenged under the Establishment Clause. Spacco v. Bridgewater School Department, 722 F.Supp. 834 (D.Mass.1989). The court recognized that merely accommodating plaintiffs by reassigning the student who brought the case would not be an adequate remedy if an enduring Establishment Clause violation was proven. Id. at 848 (citing Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 224-25, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 1572-73, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 (1963)). This was, however, the sole preliminary equitable relief that plaintiffs requested. Id. Thus, the court ordered Louis Spacco, III reassigned for the 1989-90 school year and established a schedule intended to achieve a prompt determination of the merits of the case.

Plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment on their requests for permanent injunctive and declaratory relief. These motions were scheduled to be fully briefed by mid-October, 1989. In early October, 1989, however, the Bridgewater School Committee made several changes in the lease and use of the Parish Center which addressed some of the factors that influenced the court to find a reasonable likelihood of an Establishment Clause violation when deciding the motion for preliminary injunction.

The School Committee, among other things, renegotiated key provisions of the lease for the Parish Center. The original lease provided that the Town's use of the Parish Center would "at all times be consistent with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church enunciated by the Holy Father and Bishops in communion with him," and further stated that "in this regard the parties would rely upon and defer to the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston." Id. at 836. The original lease also provided that the Archbishop could terminate the rental on fourteen days notice if this "Catholic teachings" clause was violated and that the lease would terminate automatically if the clause was found invalid or unenforceable. Id. The renegotiated rental agreement provided that either party could terminate the lease without cause, for any reason, on thirty days notice.

In addition, the Bridgewater School Committee altered the manner in which the Parish Center was used with regard to several matters which were addressed in the court's decision concerning the motion for preliminary injunction. For example, the School Committee directed that the students enter the building through a side door, rather than through the front entrance under a large cross; that the students no longer walk to the play area through the cemetery, which is replete with crosses, religious statues, and religious sayings; and that the inside of the building be checked daily to assure that no religious articles or messages were exposed to the children. See id. at 836-37.

After revising the lease and the manner in which the Parish Center was utilized, defendants moved to dismiss the case as moot. The developments concerning the lease and use of the Parish Center necessitated further briefing regarding plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and defendants' request that the case be dismissed as moot. A hearing on the motions was subsequently held. Decision of the motions was deferred, in part to permit the parties to explore the possibility of settlement.

After efforts to settle the case failed, the court denied defendants' motion to dismiss the case as moot. The court also denied plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. As explained in the court's Memorandum and Order dated March 14, 1990, the issues then remaining to be litigated included, but were not limited to: (1) whether the original lease requiring that use of the premises be consistent with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church was the functional equivalent of the vesting of governmental power in a religious institution found to be impermissible in Larkin v. Grendel's Den, 459 U.S. 116, 103 S.Ct. 505, 74 L.Ed.2d 297 (1982); (2) if so, whether the renegotiated lease cured this defect; and (3) whether the lease and manner of using the Parish Center conveyed the impermissible message that religion or a particular religion is officially preferred by the Town of Bridgewater. See County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, ___ U.S. ___, 109 S.Ct. 3086, 3115, 106 L.Ed.2d 472 (1989); Spacco, 772 F.Supp. at 840.

The parties were allowed to conduct the additional discovery necessary to prepare the case for trial. Trial was scheduled to commence in May, 1990, with a view to having the case decided in time to permit the orderly assignment of the school children who would be affected by the outcome of the case.

In preparing for trial, however, the court perceived that very recent developments raised questions concerning whether plaintiffs' request for permanent injunctive relief had become moot and whether their request for declaratory relief had become so abstract as to be inappropriate for adjudication. More specifically, the court learned that because of the fiscal crisis being experienced by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its cities and towns, it appeared that Bridgewater probably would not have the funds necessary to lease the Parish Center for the 1990-91 school year and that the possibility of its rental for the following school year was also uncertain. Thus, exercising its authority under Federal Rule of Evidence 611(a) to control the order of interrogating witnesses and presenting evidence, the court ordered that the first phase of the trial be limited to evidence concerning whether the case had become moot or otherwise not justiciable.

The trial commenced in late May, 1990. The defendants then claimed the case was moot. Plaintiffs disagreed and reasserted their entitlement to injunctive and declaratory relief.

The court heard testimony from the members of the Bridgewater School Committee, the Superintendent of the Bridgewater Schools, and Louis Spacco, Jr. The court also, by agreement of the parties, considered the deposition testimony of Father Frederick J. Ryan, who had been designated to speak on behalf of the Archbishop of Boston for the purposes of this case. The foregoing evidence indicated to the court that, among other things, plaintiffs still had a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on at least one of their Establishment Clause claims if the case was not moot.

More specifically, according to Father Ryan, the provision of the renegotiated lease permitting the Archbishop of Boston to terminate the rental of the Parish Center for any reason on thirty days notice had the same purpose as the earlier provision authorizing termination on fourteen days notice if the premises were not used in a manner consistent with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Deposition of Father Frederick J. Ryan at 32 (March 26, 1990). The purpose of both provisions, one form of which is included in all leases of property by the Archbishop of Boston, is to "prevent public scandal." Id. at 33. In this context, a "public scandal" would be use of Church property, including the Parish Center, in a fashion contrary to basic Roman Catholic doctrines and values. Id. at 34-36.

In view of the foregoing, it became evident to the court that even assuming, without deciding, that the revisions of the lease and the manner in which the Parish Center was being used by Bridgewater resolved the "primary effect" prong issues addressed by the court in granting the motion for preliminary injunction, Spacco, 722 F.Supp. at 839-43, the "entanglement" prong analysis, id. at 844-47, was not materially affected. Thus, there still appeared to be a reasonable...