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Court Says Woman's Muslim Faith Relevant To Her Emotional Distress Claim

By Howard M. Friedman

In Jama v. United States, (WD WA, May 17, 2010), a Muslim woman brought various challenges to the manner in which law enforcement officers searched her apartment in a raid seeking evidence of khat distribution. During the raid, police officers forced plaintiff to remain outside her apartment in a nightgown without her head covered. In an earlier decision (see prior posting), the court concluded that police and DEA officials had qualified immunity to plaintiff's Religious Freedom Restoration Act claim. In the current decision, the court rejected plaintiff's Fourth Amendment claims. However it held that plaintiff did properly plead a claim for the common law tort of outrage-- which requires intentional or reckless infliction of emotional distress. The court said in part:

Taking the facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, a rational jury could find that federal officials, who enjoyed a position of power over Plaintiff while conducting the search in this case, forced her to appear in a state of relative undress before unrelated men for a significant period of time. They forced her to appear in this state of undress even though she had modest clothing in the very apartment that officers were searching. A rational jury could find that police officers therefore unnecessarily degraded Plaintiff, and that this behavior ought "to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community." ... A rational jury could also find that federal agents knew full well that Plaintiff?s Muslim faith made her particularly susceptible to emotional distress under these circumstances.

[Thanks to Volokh Conspiracy for the lead.]

Full post as published by Religion Clause on May 22, 2010 (boomark / email).