the court my name is julie porter and i represent appellant mary rayfield in this case the question before you today is whether a religious employer is completely unaccountable completely beyond court scrutiny when it punishes an employee who is trying to protect the health and safety of children and others in the school community by reporting criminal conduct to police if the lower court's dismissal of mrs ray field's claims here then religious institutions will have free reign to sweep criminal conduct under the rug not only would such a ruling be dangerous for illinois citizens but it would be unnecessary here this court has a long and successful history of balancing important rights and that is what is needed in this case a balancing of the diocese's undeniable st amendment right to religious freedom against the crucial need to protect the health and safety of illinois citizens we are asking this court to hold that when as in mrs ray field's case religious freedom butts up against public safety issues of the highest order not only may the illinois courts  step in but they must step in here the appellate court erred in affirming the circuit court's dismissal because it completely ignored the public safety aspects of this case case now we acknowledge your honour's that there is settled law on the question of whether ministerial employees can bring employment discrimination claims against religious employers not an employment discrimination case her case involves a religious employers punishment of an employee for reporting criminal conduct to police can you explain that we rely on the complaint on seven hundred and forty i'll see s one hundred and seventy four slash fifteen b that provision prohibits an employer from retaliating against an employee and i'm quoting here for disclosing information to a government or law enforcement agency where the employee has reasonable cause to believe that the information discloses a violation of a state or federal law rule or regulation honor just mentioned but we don't proceed on that part we proceed under subsection be an unfashionable our our complaint specifically cites the language from something subsection b and that's the basis there is no requirement in proceeding under sub i mentioned that the context here is critical the fact that this is not an employment discrimination case and instead is a whistleblower case involving complaints to police the reason why that's so important here  that protecting people who report criminal conduct to police is the most important public policy in the state this court so held and palma tear and that ruling is not controversial effect i think it would be devastating to my argument your honor the lower courts held that the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine was so broad that it precluded the illinois courts from hearing my client's claims at all there was no distinction in those opinions between hearing the statutory claim and the common law playing it is it is critically important that there be a door open in the illinois courts to clients states supreme court and others and the reason the reason why they're not intention your honor is because of this very different context that has not been presented before you get this new for better or for worse that's for cars that's right nor though can i cite you cases and nor can the diocese cite cases in illinois or from the u s supreme court that said that they can't it hasn't been presented yet what has been presented and where i would be shut down entirely is if i came to you and said mary rayfield was discriminated against based on her age or her sex or her national origin or some other protected category you would tell me no and you would have lots of cases cite to tell me i'm wrong but that is not true for this case it is very important that this court make law that tells employees who fear that they have to make a choice between reporting criminal conduct and losing their livelihood that they don't have to make that decision people who are in that position have a strong strong deterrent that may cause them to keep their mouths sh with with a silence then that can lead to tragic consequences in that in this particular situation if mary rayfield had known now or known that what she knows now would she have called the police to protect the school community to tell police about this threatening parent that she thought posed a risk to the students at the school and the community of the school now i don't know the answer to that mrs rayfield is a lovely person who cares about the community and maybe she would have put her job on the two thousand six hundred and seventeen school year and she had already been given and signed a contract for the following school year but she was fired and the two hundred and one thousand six hundred and seventeen school year meaning she had to leave the property she w not permitted to return to teach she was not permitted to come back the following year and teach it is true that the diocese paid out the amount due on the contract but discharge  employment discharge involves more than just getting your pay and this court has so held another contact such as in the middle case which we cite that involved collective bargaining agreement employees who still had retaliatory discharge claims even though they had they also had contracts because this court held it's not just about paying you out what your do under the contract if that were the case employers could rationally make a decision as the diocese apparently did here will just pay you out what you're owed and no one dollar will look further there will be no possibility of punitive damages or anything that would deter employers from from thumbing their nose at the public policy of the state of making decisions that can have the real lasting harm not just for the employee in question but for other employees who see this conduct here mary rayfield with the principal this was very vis to other school employees though the lesson that they take is if i see something i better not say something because i could get fired the discharge of mary rayfield the not allowing her to laws and one of the things that's interesting about the mandatory reporting laws is that with little fanfare they strike the type of balance that i'm asking your honour's to strike today the mandated reporting laws the statute then impose it's criminal sanctions on mandated reporters who knowingly and willfully disregard their duty in and of the self that statute is is drawing a balance that religious freedom does not overcome the health and safety of our children when it comes to seeing abuse or neglect even someone who is not a you know regular regular public school teacher someone who is an  employee of a religious school who might otherwise be required to follow only the religious laws and the principle set by that school is required under illinois law to make that report and the reason for that is that we aren't going to put on the kids the risk that just because they happen to go to a religious school they're not going to be protected that's a public policy of the state enshrined in the laws of the state and by the same token this court can make that distinction here in certain sorts of cases like employment discrimination pieces you don't get to come to court the law has been set that line has been drawn but the line has not yet been drawn on cases like this one that implicate the a threat by a parent the the principal my client mrs rayfield was concerned that this parent posed a safety risk a physical safety risk to the school community and that is what made to school personnel the last of the threats was made in the form of a voicemail message that was last left for the pastor but mrs rayfield certainly perceived that as a threat to the school and that's how she acted a in our complaint part of what she wanted to do was notified people who were on the premises of the school this is what this this parent looks like you need to be on the lookout and q c comes to the school it was a public safety it was a safety threat that she did consult with her supervisors before doing so and we also allege in the complaint that notwithstanding those communications she was terminated in retaliation for making this report to the  police and so whatever the communications may have ben that gave mrs rayfield the belief that she was doing this safely plainly she was not because she was fired for it that's what we claim in the complaint now this case was dismissed on a motion t alternately it will be up we hope to a jury to make that ultimate determination but what we allege is that notwithstanding those communications where she was trying to do the right thing and she was trying to make sure that she wasn't out of  step but in the end she was fired for going to the police and that cannot happen your honor that can't be the law in the state of illinois that someone who is just trying to do the best for the kids in her school who is trying to protect their safety can be fired before this happened meaning before mrs rayfield reported the criminal conduct of police there was no indication whatsoever that her that her job was in harm's way and there are a few very tangible markers of that that we include in the complaint for one she had already been presented with an accepted a contract for the following school year for two she had just been nominated by the school i'm sorry let me take that back i'm not sure who submitted the nomination i'll have to check back to the complaint but she was nominated to be principal of the year for her outstanding service and outstanding work nothing else had happened that would cause her to be abruptly discharged besides her report to police that's what we allege in your honor if it was a terminations because if it had not been a termination she would have still been there to lead community to serve the students to mentor the teachers to give the care that she had given for so long and that was of great importance to her want to point out that this difference between the employment discrimination cases that were before the supreme court of the united states and the case that i'm talking about now case involving involving reporting to police about criminal misconduct that difference was so obvious that it was openly discussed at the oral arguments before the u s supreme court both and the  during the hosanna table or argument one of the justices posed a hypothetical of a teacher who report sexual abuse to the government and aspired because of that reporting at that argument even counsel for the church acknowledged that when it came to protecting children the government's interest was sufficiently compelling to justify interfering with the relationship between the church and its ministers and the cour opinion and hosing on the table or made clear that its opinion applied only to the employment discrimination context the exact same hypothetical came up again in the very recent guadalupe decision and again from the oral argument transcript it's clear that everyone arguing that case understood that the context i'm talking to about now today was different and that that was off the table and there is nothing in the guadalupe decision to suggest otherwise that he's dealt with an age discrimination claim and it dealt with a disability discrimination claim neither of those cases presented the critical public safety issues that are that are on the table here you can and should find that there is a compelling government interest in protecting a school community safety that is sufficiently powerful to open the doors of illinois courts to an employee a religious institution who has been punished for going to the police to for help as happened here i want to take a moment on the issue of the retaliatory discharge claim and the fact that mr ray field had a contract i'll briefly note that this court's decisions in midget those were both cases where defendants made the argument that the diocese makes here that is that retaliatory discharge only protects at will employees not employees covered by contracts this court rejected that argument twice and that's for good reason there's nothing about the fact that the employee has a contract versus being at will that makes for a different argument and i will speak to you on the bottle thank you very much fire discipline and otherwise control employees deemed to ministers of the faith courts may not interfere in these decisions so long as the employee qualifies as a minister was on a table involved a claim discrimination under title seven of the civil rights act just two months ago their lady of guadalupe versus morrissey brewer the supreme court expanded the hosanna ministerial exception to include quote employment d unquote between a faith based school and its ministerial employees the court stated when a school with a religious mission and trust a teacher with the responsibility of educating and forming students in the fa judicial intervention into disputes between the school in the teacher threatens the school's independence in a way that the st amendment does not allow the court protecting god's children policy that every diocese in the united states follows in one form or another we train our teachers we train our janitors we train our lunch ladies we train our volunteers everybody must take the protecting bad children course and one of the fundamental aspects of back course for teachers and even we even advise our falun tear religious education teacher there is not an exception here and i would not put it that way because the ecclesiastical exemption doctrine prohibits the courts from interfering in these types of decisions what i am saying that is that internally the catholic church has taken steps in this is well documented taken steps to protect children from bad people priests lay people volunteers teachers parents we have children come to school sometimes with bruises and and mandated reporters the issue is simply a fiction it's fear mongering just like she's argues or a minister employee could get fired for reporting the sexual abuse of her supervisor again they do there there will never be a teacher terminated for reporting a suspected case of child abuse to the c f s that will not happen in this day and age it's just simply not realistic is the reason i don't know that that's part of the record your honor i happen to know that because i was involved in the situation but i do not believe it's part of the record but what i can state that is on the record is this in the appellate court's opinion the court twice asserted in this in this in a court said that she was not terminated for calling the police but when the fact that she called the police became public that's when she was terminated girl that was allegedly bullying his daughter and he he made a threat against this girl in an e mail to the girl's teacher and then he basically said to the teacher you better take care of us though there were additional e mails that came rayfield heard that phone call and called the police a nd time now this was in february of two thousand and seventeen she consulted with the piaster she consulted with the they isis and superintendent of schools and they both said call the police so she did nothing happened until may when william again is brought in on a bond hearing and there happens to be a reporter sitting in the courtroom here's the story about st raphael the next day on the front page man threatens to terrorize school and there on the front page is a picture of him raphael school the parents go crazy they go absolutely crazy they didn't know about this they didn't know that anything had happened and they were meeting and she was for all intents and purposes crucified by the parents so the appellate court said she was terminated when it became public not because she made the reports so what does that tell us that tell us tells us this is not about the safety of students this is about a principal who made a conscious decision not to tell her parents about these threatening e mails and phone calls it the time we were make you know we live in a time when people have access to information two hundred and forty seven and parents now adays these are these are not baby boomers these  you know i think generation x or us these are young folks in their forty's that expect information two hundred and forty seven especially when it comes to their children or he did not he did not her own responsibility as the principal was to be the person who communicates to the school parents  time he wanted the teacher to address the bullying that he that his his daughter apparently was telling him he did the kids picking on me and so he got upset and he emailed to get his a one thousand miles away in the us to choose that's it he emails the teacher and says i want you to take care of this the tone of the any mail was threatening in nature whether it was directed at the student or the teacher at this point is unclear but again the man was a one thousand miles away and i don't even know if he knew the name of the child he was  talking about but again getting back to what i think the crux of the matter here is i think what mary rayfield is really arguing or perhaps should be arguing is that she was the scapegoat she wasn't terminated because she was a whistleblower and she wasn't a whistleblower either because she didn't report the criminal activity of her employer however she may have been the scapegoat she may have been the pastor didn't report it the superintendent of schools didn't report it did not apparently did not tell her you need to communicate this to the parents that those steps are not played in the complaint whether or not she was directed to not tell the parents or state whether she was directed to tell the parents but it is the chief person responsible for those kids in that school and the chief person responsible to the parents of those students it was her responsibility to make that call now whether it was right or wrong i don't think i the point i think the point is that when the parents realized that they had been left out of all this all these you know things that occurred with this man they were are i think the definition of a whistleblower if you even look it up in the miriam with webster dictionary yes a person who blows the whistle on their employer i mean the classic example is not this situation this is within you know this is a this is a parent who again is a one thousand miles away you know in massachusetts so i do not believe that mary rayfield is a whistleblower under the statute certainly not under the which which they have not responded to in their reply brief a classic definition of a whistleblower is the one who blows the whistle on their employer and that is not what happened here but the stance of the century unfortunately doesn't even who are employed pursuant to a contract the rights responsibilities and remedies available to them are contained within the four corners of a contract it's no different than any other country  actual relationship this is why it will employees can sue for certain things like retaliatory discharge discrimination other things but contracted employees in this case a country employee with the church doesn't is not afforded those same rights her rights were contained within those contracts plain and simple there is not a case in the state that says that a contract employee walk away she was because the parents lost complete confidence in her which is evident from the description plaintiff's kids in the complaint about that meeting that was a debacle they completely lost confidence in her the pastor had no choice it was the best thing for the school it was the best thing for the parish it was the best thing for the fa community that he le honor i would like to go back to the i admit that i made earlier and that is you know since two thousand and two since the charter the catholic church unlike many other mainstream churches has made great strides and protecting employees and culture acting children they've made great strides again we have this protecting god's children we are bound by employment laws in the state of illinois this claim is going to give the church free reign to just run amok in the state of illinois i think it is preposterous i think that is unfair i think the church again has done great things in the last twenty years to protect parishioners students teachers et your honor our position is that if this court were to allow this case to proceed it's going to involve excessive entanglement between  church doctrine church policy the authority of the pastor over the principle of a catholic school is derived from canon law so if this case goes back a discovery proceeds then get all tangled up here the court and the church and that is what the supreme court said we cannot do in watsonville jones one hundred and twenty nine years ago  so it's both she is a minister of the church but if this court decides not to apply the cli's yes all of sentient doctrine to this case even though she is clearly a minister they only that i would do otherwise she's clearly a minister but if for some reason the court decides to apply it in this case because it's retaliatory discharge it's a new it's a new employment issue that has not been addressed before that's when we get into the  this employee was the principal your honor she was the principal of the school she sure did she was responsible for the faith formation of not only her staff but every student in that school she was required to be a committed practicing catholic she was required to follow all of the policies of the diocese of joliet with regard to the faith formation of children she was required to incorporate the catholic faith into every aspect of education prayer in every class prayer before lunch there are crucifixes in every classroom there are statues all over the atmosphere in a catholic school the stalker of a severely catholic that was not a part of her job to ensure the catholic identity of the school has honestly never made any serious claim that she was not a ministerial employee i think that is a given in this case if you know for the questions i would respectfully ask the court to affirm the decision of your honor before the quad a local guadeloupe a decision was issued a couple months ago i would have taken a run at that with you i would have i think there's powerful arguments the she isn't but i will tell you after the guadalupe decision which held the pretty low level teachers at religious institutions qualified as ministers i don't think i have the best of that argument but i don't want this court to get caught up on that because for purposes of my argument it does not matter it does not matter the janitor clearly is not a ministerial employee but whether it's the janitor who has criminal conduct to report or the pastor or herself or himself whether it's the minister or some other person if the issue is i am aware of criminal conduct i need to go to the police to protect the health and safety that is a different situation and it doesn't matter and that's really where will be less so i'm sure guadalupe but the point that i have been making from the beginning is that even if she is and i didn't want to concede it before but even if she is that's not our argument this is a different type of case  past your instructor not to go to the police that's not in our complaint and i'm glad you asked that because we should not be having that discussion right now your question is fine i don't mean to criticize your question but when i fear when i hear counsel for the actually delved into all these cars zation issues and questions st of all that has never been raised before the illinois supreme court level it was not raised in the circuit court it was not raised before the it's an argument that they forfeited but even so the facts that we plead in our complaint we are entitled at a motion to dismiss stage to have our facts credited and to have the inference is taken in our favor when you do that your honor the answer is we allege that she was retaliated against for calling the police and that's the reason she was terminated and that for not informing the parents correct correct it is true that she went to the fact that you led this event with the parents we did plead the context but again the inference is that we draw from that hard are different from what the diocese is presenting to you what what happened with that meeting is that the leaders above mrs grey field completely backed away for her from her left her to fend for herself and did not did not back up the decision at all and then terminated her for going to the it in a way that says well this is really about how the parents reacted and this is really about something different than going to come police it's about reporting issues that's not in the record your honor and that is frankly a question for the jury that the issue that we've gotten stopped on is the courts not even allowed to look at this and when i hear when i hear the catholic church has been a great strides since two thousand and two i hope that that gives you as much pause as it gives me that's not in the record either st of all but that's not what this case is about at least it shouldn't be whether or not this court sufficiently trusts the catholic church or any other religious institution to protect children that cannot be where we are in two thousand and twenty i wish it were true i wish that that were true that every child going to school were safe that there were going to be school shootings that there would be no teachers who didn't harm children but that is not where we are and that risk cannot be on the kids it can't be the cases don't come up every day that's one of the reasons why your honour's and other other justices in your position haven't had to write this opinion yet it doesn't come up a lot and that's great but when it does when it does  emerge that a person is claiming i was fired because i went to the police that i was retaliated against for that even though it's a minister and even though it's a religious institution the courts should get to look at that there's not because she was fired because she notified the parents and their age no your honor that is not the issue the answer is no she was fired because she reported to police that as well that is what we know well your honor we have we have not only alleged that conclusion but we have alleged facts supporting it in our complaint how do you know that maybe i will be back before you a year from now after we've done discovery in the case and after people have been questioned about what is it that happened and when and why and maybe then we'll talk about that record and whether that record supports my client's claims of causation or whether it doesn't but to deprive her of the opportunity to strong public policy your honor is that we allege that mary wakefield was fired because she reported criminal conduct to the police please do not be distracted that by opposing counsel's argument that she was really fired for some other reason that she was really fired because the parents were upset that is opposing counsel's a characterization of the record a record that isn't yet made it twists and undermines the standard that we can be held to on a motion to dismiss where your honor is required to accept the inferences that we draw that that's that's what's required on the motion to dismiss and here we allege very plainly in our complaint that the percent the taking of them for her terminations was the fact that she reported to police this is not the stage to assess the causation of play not only because it was forfeited but because that is going to require a factual development and if i might briefly on the entangle issue if a day comes when i do depose the pastor it's not going to be about church doctrine this case has nothing to do with church doctrine and even in arguing to your honor's what the real reason was for mary ray fields germination outside the record nothing was said about her to doctor and the argument was made that the parents were just upset that that goes to show that in order to resolve this case the illinois courts need not delve into religious principles or church doctrine it's really not what this case is about we urge your honour's to reverse the appellate court's decision to reinstate mary rayfield claim and to make a rule of law that protects illinois suddens citizens thank you very