Opinion ID: 1933310
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Free Exercise of Religion Considerations.

Text: Looming large in the background of this case is the Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the First Amendment. The defendants have maintained from the outset that their dispute with the plaintiffs is a religious one into which the courts are constitutionally constrained from injecting themselves. They contend that most or all of the conduct with which the plaintiffs have charged them was dictated by their religious beliefs, and that they have a constitutional right to carry out their religious obligations without judicial interference or intrusion. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, claim that the defendants engaged in garden variety fraud and coercion and are seeking to disguise their wrongful acts by dressing them up in religious garb. The Free Exercise Clause embraces two conceptsfreedom to believe and freedom to act. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303, 60 S.Ct. 900, 903, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940); see also Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 877, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 1599, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990). The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be. Cantwell, supra, 310 U.S. at 303-04, 60 S.Ct. at 903. Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 166, 25 L.Ed. 244 (1879); see also Smith, supra, 494 U.S. at 877-89, 110 S.Ct. at 1599-1600. [22] To permit someone to engage in activities which would otherwise be proscribed by law, upon the ground that such conduct is required by his or her religion, would `make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.' Smith, supra, 494 U.S. at 879, 110 S.Ct. at 1600 (quoting Reynolds, supra, 98 U.S. at 167). Accordingly, the right of free exercise of religion does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or prescribes). Smith, supra, 494 U.S. at 879, 110 S.Ct. at 1600 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The trial judge correctly applied the foregoing principles in denying the defendants' motion for summary judgment on the claim of fraud. [23] The same analysis fairly applies to the allegations of undue influence. If, as the plaintiffs maintain, the defendants extracted contributions by overbearing the will of one or more of the plaintiffs, then their conduct is not insulated from judicial scrutiny by the defendants' status as clergymen. Molko, supra, 46 Cal.3d at 1124-25, 762 P.2d at 64-65, 252 Cal.Rptr. at 140-41; see also Ambassador College v. Geotzke, supra, 675 F.2d at 663-65. This is particularly true in light of the allegations that the defendants urged parishioners to engage in disingenuous conduct in connection with the simultaneous solicitation of multiple loans; the First Amendment does not provide a license to pressure parishioners into trying to swindle financial institutions. [24] The trial judge was sensitive to First Amendment considerations precluding him from placing the defendants' religious beliefs on trial. He remarked that the truth or falsity of what he characterized as statements of faith e.g., representations from the pulpit that it is the Word of the Lord that each parishioner must borrow or sell to raise $5,000could not be proved, and that he was troubled by the question whether I ought to be speaking about it at all in this courtroom. The judge's concerns were well-founded. It is not in the competence of courts under our constitutional scheme to approve, disapprove, classify, regulate, or in any manner control sermons delivered at religious meetings. Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U.S. 67, 70, 73 S.Ct. 526, 527, 97 L.Ed. 828 (1953). To the extent the claims are based merely on threats of divine retribution ..., they cannot stand. Molko, supra, 46 Cal.3d at 1120, 762 P.2d at 61, 252 Cal. Rptr. at 137-38; see also Snyder v. Evangelical Orthodox Church, 216 Cal.App.3d 297, 305, 264 Cal.Rptr. 640, 644 (1989). [25] But although a sound claim of undue influence could rarely, if ever, [26] be founded solely upon the generalized invocation from the pulpit of the wrath of God, without one-on-one or similar pressures focused upon the complaining party rather than on the audience as a whole, it does not follow that a clergyman's resort to threats of eternal damnation and the like is irrelevant. The question whether undue influence has been exercised to overbear a dependent party's will turns on all of the circumstances of the case. Guill, supra, 191 Neb. at 821, 218 N.W.2d at 234. Repeated reiteration, even from the pulpit, that God will curse or kill any parishioner who does not sell or borrow enough to meet the bishop's demands, potentially affects the listener's vulnerability to any subsequent and constitutionally unprotected importuning. Evidence of threats of divine retribution has been routinely received and relied upon, especially where not all of the representations were made exclusively in sermons to the entire congregation, and where some were also reiterated to the plaintiffs individually. See, e.g., In re The Bible Speaks, Molko, Nelson, and Whitmire, supra . We find no fault with the consideration of such evidence. Attempts to shame delinquent parishioners into meeting their pledges by requiring them to walk through a gauntlet of deacons may not only humiliate and intimidate those who are doing the walking, but can also send a chilling message to others who are present or who hear of the event after the fact. Assuming without deciding that the practice is founded on the defendants' religious convictions, we do not believe that, under Reynolds and Smith, the existence of a religious basis for an improperly coercive practice will completely immunize contributions allegedly extracted thereby from judicial scrutiny. Compare Bear v. Reformed Mennonite Church, 462 Pa. 330, 341 A.2d 105 (1975), with Paul v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc'y, 819 F.2d 875 (9th Cir.) cert. denied, 484 U.S. 926, 108 S.Ct. 289, 98 L.Ed.2d 249 (1987); see Free Exercise, supra note 23, 93 A.L.R. FED. 737. At the very least, the court may consider such evidence as part of the totality of circumstances; we need not and do not decide whether a case of undue influence could be founded on such a practice, standing alone.