A divided federal appeals panel won’t consider Moody Bible Institute’s appeal of a judge’s refusal to dismiss a complaint from a former teacher who accused the Chicago evangelical Christian school of Title VII sex discrimination and wrongful termination.
Janay Garrick, who taught communications for three years at Moody, sued in the wake of her 2017 firing, alleging the school treated her differently from male colleagues. U.S. District Judge John Kness declined to dismiss Garrick’s second amended complaint, rejecting Moody’s attempt to invoke Title VII’s religious exemptions and the grant of church autonomy under the First Amendment. Moody sought intervention from the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued a 2-1 ruling March 18.
Judge Amy St. Eve wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judge David Hamilton, holding Judge Kness’ order wasn’t subject to interlocutory appeal under the collateral order doctrine. Judge Michael Brennan dissented, calling the majority opinion a violation of Moody’s First Amendment rights, and warning Garrick's legal claims cannot win without trespassing into constitutionally impermissible examinations of church doctrine.
Judge Amy J. St. Eve
| U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
Garrick, representing herself, initially responded to her termination with a January 2018 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint. In addition to gender, she cited differences with Moody over the ordination of women and claimed improper retaliation for complaints about her own treatment and on behalf of female students.
Moody succeeded in dismissing Garrick’s first amended complaint by invoking “the ministerial exception, the church autonomy doctrine, and Title VII’s religious exemptions,” according to St. Eve. The second amended complaint went beyond her claims that termination on grounds of religious disagreement “was pretext for its true motives — discrimination and retaliation” to add allegations of school conduct allegedly not tied to its religious beliefs.
Judge Kness dismissed Garrick’s hostile work environment claim with prejudice for failure to state a claim, but denied attempts to dismiss claims of discrimination, disparate treatment and retaliation. Moody didn’t reassert its ministerial exception defense at that stage or on appeal, St. Eve noted.
“Further emphasizing the distance between Garrick’s claims and questions of doctrine,” St. Eve wrote, Kness “also pointed out that Moody’s own representation of complementarianism is that it ‘exclude(s) women from serving as ministers’ but ‘it does not follow that Moody’s faith requires unequal treatment of women who work in secular roles.’ ”
Kness denied Moody’s request for reconsideration and certification for interlocutory appeal. That prompted Moody to ask the Seventh Circuit panel to consider the appeal, arguing “the doctrine of church autonomy guarantees immunity from judicial entanglement in religious matters,” St. Eve wrote.
St. Eve said the panel could only grant that request if it found Kness’ order conclusive, if it would “resolve important questions separate from the merits” and if it was effectively unreviewable on appeal from the final judgment in the underlying action.”
Examples of orders that qualify such review are denial of a criminal defendant’s double jeopardy claim, a public official’s absolute immunity claim, a state’s 11th Amendment immunity claim, a foreign government’s sovereign immunity claim and qualified immunity claims based only on legal questions and not factual disputes.
St. Eve said Brennan’s “dissent seeks to expand the collateral order doctrine by creating a new category never recognized by the Supreme Court or any other circuit.” She pointed to a 2014 U.S. Seventh Circuit opinion, Herx v. Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, which held a Title VII religious exemption didn’t compel the panel to take up a similar appeal of a lawsuit from a teacher who alleged her termination was connected to in vitro fertilization.
“The similarities between Herx and the case before us are inescapable,” St. Eve wrote. “Both Garrick and Herx claimed their religious employers discriminated against them on the basis of sex by firing them, as prohibited by Title VII. Both the Diocese and Moody have asserted that the plaintiffs were fired due to religious disagreement, claiming Title VII’s religious exemptions and the First Amendment as defenses against suit. Both district courts found that a jury could conclude that, all other things being equal, male employees would be or had been treated differently.”
While allowing a trial court couldn’t consider Moody’s rules about who could speak at chapel and Garrick’s allegation she had to strike from her resume a reference to ordination, St. Eve wrote, “discovery into certain areas including whether male employees were subject to peer reviews, rebuked for speaking out against perceived sexism on campus, denied reduced teaching loads while completing terminal degrees, or asked to create new courses, will not subject Moody’s doctrine to judicial second-guessing.”
Even without the Herx framework, St. Eve continued, “Moody’s appeal does not satisfy the stringent” factors needed to qualify for interlocutory review.
In his dissent, Brennan framed the underlying litigation as “claims and defenses tethered to religious beliefs” and asserted “questions about religious education are protected by church autonomy.” He noted the National Labor Relations Board can’t get involved with religious schools’ employment relationships and disagreed on the applicability of Herx to Garrick’s situation, arguing it “left open the possibility that if the diocese had shown immunity from the judicial process, an interlocutory appeal may have been warranted.”
Brennan said religious organizations should have immunity from not just adverse judgments but from the judicial process altogether. He framed Garrick’s second amended complaint as attempting to purge religious language in “a pleading game” that could abrogate fundamental First Amendment rights.
“We should see this case for what it is — Garrick and Moody profess different views of Christianity and how that faith should be taught,” Brennan wrote. “Even before she filed suit, Garrick claimed that is why Moody fired her. And on that ground, Moody must defend itself and its decisions. … A district court cannot monitor this case through its life cycle without entering the field of religious controversy. This will threaten a faith-based school’s autonomy over its affairs and its authority to shape and control how and what it teaches.”
Daniel Blomberg, vice president and senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Moody in the litigation, issued a statement on the ruling:
“For almost 140 years, Moody has trained future Christian leaders for Christian service. That training requires teachers who practice what Moody preaches. (The March 18) ruling doesn’t change the common sense rule that religious colleges and seminaries like Moody have the freedom to hire teachers who fully embrace the schools’ core religious beliefs. Moody is confident that courts will protect that freedom, just as they have since the nation’s founding.”
Editor's note: This article was revised to correct the title for Daniel Bloomberg, of The Becket Fund.