Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Pauley

• Decision Date: 26 September 2013
• Docket Number: No. 2:13–CV–04022–NKL.,2:13–CV–04022–NKL.
• Citation: 976 F.Supp.2d 1137
• Parties: TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH OF COLUMBIA, INC., Plaintiff, v. Sara Parker PAULEY, in her official capacity as Director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Solid Waste Management Program, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri

976 F.Supp.2d 1137

TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH OF COLUMBIA, INC., Plaintiff,
v.
Sara Parker PAULEY, in her official capacity as Director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Solid Waste Management Program, Defendant.

No. 2:13–CV–04022–NKL.

United States District Court,
W.D. Missouri,
Central Division.

Sept. 26, 2013.

[976 F.Supp.2d 1140]

Joel L. Oster, Alliance Defending Freedom, Erik W. Stanley, Leawood, KS, Michael K. Whitehead, Whitehead Law Firm, LLC, Kansas City, MO, for Plaintiff.

Donald A. Willoh, Jr., Jeremy Daniel Knee, Missouri Attorney General's Office, Jefferson City, MO, for Defendant.

ORDER
NANETTE K. LAUGHREY, District Judge.

Defendant Sara Parker Pauley, in her official capacity as Director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Solid Waste Management Program (“Department”), moves to dismiss the Complaint of Plaintiff Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. (“Trinity”). [Doc. # 9]. For the reasons set forth below, Pauley's motion to dismiss is GRANTED and this case is DISMISSED, with prejudice.

I. Background

Trinity is a church that operates a preschool and daycare called the Learning Center. The Learning Center is a ministry of the church and incorporates daily religious instruction. Through the Learning Center, Trinity teaches a Christian world view to the children enrolled in these programs, including the Gospel. The Learning Center's policy is to admit students of any sex, race, color, religion, nationality, and ethnicity.

The Department of Natural Resources Solid Waste Management Program runs the Scrap Tire Program, which competitively awards grants to qualifying organizations for the purchase of recycled tires to resurface playgrounds. Due to the limited funds available for this program, the Department grades and ranks the applications it receives and only gives grants to those organizations that best serve the program's purposes. Both public and private nonprofit day care centers and other nonprofit entities are eligible to submit grant applications. However, the Department has a policy that prohibits organizations from participating if the applicant is owned or controlled by a church, sect or denomination of religion. It contends that this policy is consistent with Article 1, Section 7, of the Missouri Constitution which prohibits public money being used to aid religion.

Seeking to improve the safety of the surface area of its playground, Trinity, through the Learning Center, applied for a grant under the 2012 Scrap Tire Program. Trinity's grant application was graded and ranked fifth out of forty-four applications. Although a total of fourteen grants were awarded in 2012, Trinity's grant application was denied because of the Department's policy to not give grants to religious organizations.

Trinity now sues Pauley, who is named solely in her official capacity as the Director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Solid Waste Management Program. Trinity's Complaint claims that the denial of its grant application violated Article I, Section 7 of the Missouri Constitution, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Free Exercise, Establishment and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment.

[976 F.Supp.2d 1141]

II. Discussion

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), Pauley moves to dismiss Trinity's Complaint for failure to state a claim. When considering a motion to dismiss, the Court must accept as true the factual allegations contained in the complaint, and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. See Gomez v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 676 F.3d 655, 660 (8th Cir.2012).

A. Missouri Constitution Article I, Section 7

Trinity claims that when the Department refused to allow it to participate in the Scrap Tire Program, the Department impermissibly discriminated against Trinity in violation of Article I, Section 7 of the Missouri Constitution. Section 7 provides “[t]hat no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or denomination of religion, or in aid of any priest, preacher, minister or teacher thereof ...; and that no preference shall be given to nor any discrimination made against any church, sect or creed of religion, or any form of religious faith or worship.” Mo. Const. art. I, § 7.

Trinity relies on the second clause of Section 7 for the proposition that the Department cannot deny Trinity funding merely because it is a church as this would be discrimination toward a religious organization. Pauley counters that both parts of Section 7, the prohibition on state aid to a church and the prohibition on discrimination against a church, must be read in harmony. Since state aid to a church is prohibited in the first clause, Pauley contends that the State's refusal to give aid to religious organizations could not constitute discrimination contemplated by the second clause. Instead, the second clause prohibits preference for or discrimination between religious sects or denominations.

It is a basic rule of statutory construction that each section of a statute must be interpreted in harmony with all sections of the statute. Frye v. Levy, No. SD 32307, ––– S.W.3d ––––, ––––, 2013 WL 1914393, at *4 (Mo.App. S.D. May 9, 2013). The same principle applies to constitutional construction. See Boone Cnty. Court v. State, 631 S.W.2d 321, 324 (Mo.1982). Section 7 contains two provisions—the prohibition on direct or indirect public aid to a church and the prohibition on discrimination against a church. Construing both clauses in harmony, it is not possible to read Section 7 to prohibit public aid to a church while concurrently considering denial of that aid to be discriminatory. Such a reading is inconsistent with the entirety of Section 7. Therefore, the Court concludes that a Missouri court addressing this issue would find that when a state complies with the directive in clause one of Section 7 (no aid to religious organizations), it does not violate the second clause (discrimination against religion). Thus, the next issue is whether the first clause of Section 7 would be violated if funding were given to Trinity.

Trinity contends that the Scrap Tire Program grants are not public funds expended in direct or indirect aid to a church and, therefore, giving it a grant would not violate the anti-aid provision of Section 7. At oral argument, Trinity put forth a “quid pro quo” theory of aid based on the premise that both parties to a contract have mutual obligations. Trinity argues that while the State provides funds for the purchase of the scrap tires and delivery, Trinity is contractually bound to promote the Scrap Tire Program and educate the public about the benefits of recycling. Indeed, Trinity argues that acceptance of the funding will actually result in

[976 F.Supp.2d 1142]

a greater burden to Trinity because it must find a scrap tire vendor and install the materials at its own cost. Additionally, Trinity contends that the receipt of such funds will actually aid the State by reducing landfills and decreasing pollution. In essence, Trinity argues that if public funding will result in additional obligations (advertising the Program and educating the public) and additional financial burdens (installing scrap tires) for the recipient, then such funding is merely quid pro quo and not public aid within the meaning of Section 7.

In developing this quid pro quo theory Trinity relies upon its reading of the Missouri Supreme Court case Americans United v. Rogers, 538 S.W.2d 711 (Mo.1976). In that case, the Court upheld a state statute directing tuition grants to college students attending approved public or private colleges, including private religious colleges, so long as the educational training received was non-religious in nature. Id. at 713–14. The grant program did not directly pay the funds to private institutions; rather, the students received an individual check and would then endorse it over to the institution of their choice, so long as that institution had an independent board and a policy of academic freedom. Id. at 715, 720–21. Trinity references a passage in Americans United in which supporters of the tuition grant program argued that the grants did not constitute “aid” because they did not fully cover the cost of the students' education and the institutions receiving the grants did not make a profit. Id. at 721. In other words, according to Americans United, the tuition grants “were not gifts or donations by the students to the institutions, but were the quid pro quo in return for which the institutions were contractually required to make available the opportunities for the students to obtain a college education....[T]he cost to each institution of furnishing to its students their educational opportunities is always far greater than the amount of tuition received.” Id.

At oral argument, Trinity maintained that this passage represented the Missouri Supreme Court's holding that quid pro quo exchanges of public funding in return for obligations to utilize such funding in a prescribed manner cannot be considered “aid” under Section 7. However, Trinity grossly misrepresents the Missouri Supreme Court's analysis and holding in that case. The Missouri Supreme Court merely quoted an argument presented by supporters of the tuition grant program and did not approve or in any way advance that argument. Instead, it found that the statute in question did not violate Section 7 because the students directly received the tuition grants from the state and could only attend schools with independent boards not under the control of a religious creed or church. Id. at 720–21. In the interests of judicial deference to the legislative process, the Missouri Supreme Court found that the tuition grant program “embod[ied] the will of the people.” Id. at 721. This Court has not found nor has Trinity cited any Missouri case that defines Section 7 “aid” according to Trinity's quid pro quo...