Legal News

In Texas, First Amendment Runs Up Against . . . Assault?

By Dan Slater

In the case of Schubert v. Pleasant Glade Assembly of God, here’s the question presented by Schubert’s cert brief: Does the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment preclude the imposition of civil liability for the religiously motivated assault and false imprisonment of a non-consenting minor?

The backstory: Laura Schubert Pearson, who was 17 years old in 1996, claims that a forced exorcism left her so physically bruised and emotionally scarred that she later tried to commit suicide. A divided Texas Supreme Court ruled in June that the church’s staff and members are protected by the First Amendment because the case involves an ecclesiastical dispute over religious conduct. Schubert has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Here’s the story from the Star-Telegram, and here’s the cert brief, via the Supreme Court of Texas Blog.

Schubert, who’s repped by Boies Schiller’s Scott Gant, contends that religious beliefs do not excuse someone from being held accountable for assault and false imprisonment. The church’s attorney reportedly counters, in a brief, that “pursuing this tort path would take the courts into forbidden territory: protected religious conduct.”

At trial, a jury found the church and its members liable and awarded Schubert $300,000 for mental anguish. An appeals court cut that to $178,000. But the church’s appeal to the Texas Supreme Court raised the question of whether First Amendment rights prevent the church from being held liable for mental distress triggered by what it described as a “hyper spiritualistic environment.” Justice David Medina wrote: For the court to impose any legal liability on members could have an unconstitutional “chilling effect” by compelling the church to abandon core principles.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 29, 2008 (boomark / email).