Words of Faith Fellowship v. Rutherford Cty. Dept., No. CIV.1:03 CV 298.
| Decision Date | 10 June 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. CIV.1:03 CV 298. |
| Citation | 329 F.Supp.2d 675 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of North Carolina |
| Parties | WORD OF FAITH FELLOWSHIP, INC.; Steven A.D. and Cynthia G. Cordes; Ricky F. and Suzanne M. Cooper; Jennifer Lou Moore; Kim R. Waites; David Cameron and Jayne K. Caulder; Virginia Anne Cable; Denise M. Worley; Patricia P. Dolan; Jason and Tanja Gross; Marcia Whitbeck; Gilberto Carmona; Jay and Susan Plummer, all individually and on behalf of their minor children; Cody Ryan Hawkins; and Joveille D. Clark, Plaintiffs, v. RUTHERFORD COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES; Steve Wright, in his official capacity as Chairman of The Rutherford County Board of Commissioners; John Carroll, individually, and in his capacity as Director of the Rutherford County Department of Social Services; Lynn Hopes, individually and in her capacity as Rutherford County Department of Social Services Child Protective Supervisor; and Melanie Taylor, individually and in her capacity as Rutherford County Department of Social Services Caseworker, Defendants. |
John W. Gresham, Ferguson, Stein, Chambers, Adkins, Gresham & Sumter, Charlotte, NC, Eric M. Lieberman, David B. Goldstein, Roger Bearden, Christopher J. Klatell, Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Liberman, P.C., New York, NY, for Plaintiffs.
Scott D. MacLatchie, Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, Charlotte, NC, for Defendants.
THIS MATTER is before the Court on the Defendants' motion to dismiss and the Plaintiffs' request for oral argument.
The Plaintiffs in this case are the Word of Faith Fellowship ("WFF"), a North Carolina not-for-profit religious corporation, and members of WFF who sue on their own behalf and on behalf of their children. Complaint, filed December 5, 2003, ¶¶ 13-14. The individual Plaintiffs, with the exception of Plaintiffs Jay Plummer, Susan Plummer, Cody Hawkins, and Joveille Clark, claim that they have "been and continue to be subjected to unconstitutional threats and harassment" mostly in the form of sham investigations by Defendants. Id., ¶ 14. Plaintiffs Hawkins and Clark "are recently emancipated WFF members who [claim to have been] subjected to constitutional deprivations by defendants while minors." Id., ¶ 15. The Plummers have not been investigated by Defendants, but they claim that Defendants proselytized to their children and falsely suggested to one of their children that he had been physically abused. Id., ¶ 16, 59, 72.
Plaintiffs describe WFF as a "nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic Christian church." Id., ¶ 22. WFF believes in the practice of "strong prayer" or "blasting prayer," which includes "supplication, petition, weeping, groaning, travail, crying out, praying in tongues, and shrill cries for Christ to be formed in you and to come against the works of the devil." Id., ¶ 24. Strong prayer also includes "strong preaching, teaching, praising God or singing." Id. Another of WFF's practices is called "discipleship," which requires church members to "spend time alone with God, pray, read scriptures, and listen to tapes containing religious teaching." Id., ¶ 27.
WFF operates a day school, the Word of Faith Christian School ("WFCS"), for children from kindergarten through twelfth grade, and the church operates a nursery for younger children. Id., ¶ 22. At WFCS, students who engage in disruptive behavior are removed from the regular classroom and put in discipleship. Plaintiffs compare the practice to the public schools' in-school suspension policy and emphasize that school employees supervise the students in discipleship and provide them with academic instruction. Id., ¶ 27. During discipleship, "students are taught to get before God, inquiring of Him to change their lifestyle." Id. Plaintiffs acknowledge that a child's contact with peers, friends, and family may be limited during the in-school portion of discipleship, but they maintain that "discipleship training does not involve `isolation.'" Id.
WFF believes in the use of corporal punishment at WFCS and administers it, in accordance with N.C. Gen.Stat. § 115C-390. Id., ¶ 28. Plaintiffs maintain that WFCS administers corporal punishment only after other interventions have failed and a parent or guardian has consented. Corporal punishment at WFCS consists of "one to three swats ... on the fully clothed posterior." Id. Plaintiffs do not practice corporal punishment in the church nursery. Id., ¶ 29.
Plaintiffs allege that Defendant Rutherford County Department of Social Services ("DSS") first acted improperly in 1995 after the television show Inside Edition made false statements about WFF. Id., ¶ 30. Although the complaint states that "[s]trong prayer is never used as a form of punishment or discipline of children," DSS claimed that WFF used strong prayer as "`a means of modifying the child's behavior.'" Id., ¶¶ 24, 30. DSS opened investigations against seven WFF families including Plaintiffs Ricky and Suzanne Cooper. Id., ¶ 30. According to Plaintiffs, DSS "never interviewed the alleged perpetrators of the abuse, never viewed the religious practice of strong prayer, and never requested or conducted any psychiatric or psychological testing of the children to determine whether strong prayer meets the statutory definitions of emotional abuse." Id., ¶ 31. During these investigations, DSS removed a 10-year-old girl from her home and held her until a state court rejected DSS's charges of abuse. Id., ¶ 30. Even after the state court rejected DSS's allegations, DSS sent letters to seven WFF families, including the Coopers, "in which RCDSS purported to substantiate allegations of abuse and neglect against the parents solely based on allegations of strong prayer at the Church Nursery." Id., ¶ 32. Plaintiffs claim that the letters are still on file at the Central Registry of the North Carolina Department of Social Services and prevent the recipients from adopting children and from serving as references for parents seeking to adopt. Id., ¶ 33. Furthermore, Plaintiffs claim that the letters cause them to fear that they "will be penalized or harassed" for engaging in strong prayer. Id.
DSS's next challenged behavior occurred in 2000. During the summer of that year, WFF members Ryan Millwood, Pamela McGee, and Plaintiff Virginia Anne Cable were all involved in custody disputes. Id., ¶ 34. DSS initiated investigations against the three WFF members involved in the disputes. Id. Plaintiffs allege that DSS initiated the investigations because of allegations from the non-WFF parents that the children were being subjected to harmful strong prayer and were enduring excessive corporal punishment. Id. During the course of one investigation, Rutherford County District Court Judge Randy Pool issued an oral order finding that strong prayer and corporal punishment posed potential harm to the McGee children, but Judge Pool still ordered that Pamela McGee, a WFF member, have primary custody. Id., ¶ 35.
Also during the course of these investigations, DSS asked Jane Whaley, the pastor of WFF, to sign a "Protection Plan Agreement" that would apply to all children under eighteen years old that attend WFF. Id., ¶ 36. The Plan would require that "'(1) No child at [WFF] will be subjected to any physical restraints, or to any shouting, screaming, or praying loudly in close proximity to the child;' and '(2) No child at [WFF] will be corporally punished by anyone other than the parents of the child and any such punishment shall not be done in a manner that will cause physical injury, bruises or contusions on the child.'" Id., ¶ 37 [alterations and emphasis in original]. DSS threatened to remove all children of WFF members from their parents' custody if Whaley did not sign the protection plan. Id., ¶ 38. When asked to explain the terms of the plan, DSS stated that "groaning `Oh God, Help Me, Oh God, Help Me' would be banned" and that it was possible that 400 people praying softly together could be loud enough to violate the protection plan. Id., ¶ 39. Whaley refused to sign the plan. Id., ¶ 38.
After Whaley's refusal, DSS ordered several psychological evaluations of the children from the three families under investigation. In late September 2001, DSS closed the three investigations with no findings of "abuse, neglect or dependency" against the WFF members. Id., ¶¶ 41-43.
Since 2002, Plaintiffs contend DSS has opened over a dozen investigations against WFF families including all of the Plaintiffs except the Plummers and the two recently emancipated minors, Hawkins and Clark. Id., ¶¶ 44, 48, 52. The complaint alleges that the "purpose of these investigations has been, and continues to be, to harass and to intimidate these families and the Church because of their religious beliefs and practices." Id., ¶ 53. Plaintiffs further contend that, although DSS procedures call for the agency to limit investigations to thirty days, DSS has refused to close many of these cases even after acknowledging that there is not enough evidence to proceed. Id., ¶¶ 44, 56-57, 62. Furthermore, DSS did not inform any families of the investigations' status until late October 2003, and DSS still has not substantiated any of the claims it is investigating. Id.
In addition to the investigations of WFF members, DSS also opened an investigation of the church nursery in January 2003 to determine whether the nursery was using inappropriate techniques to discipline children. Id., ¶ 58. Plaintiffs claim that DSS knew when it began the investigation that it had no authority to investigate the church nursery because the nursery does not meet the statutory definition of a "child care facility" as defined under N.C. Gen.Stat. §§ 110-86(2), (3)....
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