Court Opinion

ID: 9850760
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:02:34.781468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:42.927884
License: Public Domain

TOML JANOVICH, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur with the result reached by the majority, but write to express my concern that this matter ever reached the courts. It is important to be sensitive to racial, religious and gender differences and to avoid discrimination. However, this lawsuit defies common sense.
The majority pointed out that the word “church” does not possess the inherent derogatory qualities of an epithet. I agree. I believe that a chance remark such as the one in this case that was not motivated by any discriminatory intent should not be actionable just because it includes the word “church.”
We must eliminate the use of language that diminishes another person’s humanity, but this surely was not such language. How much better it would have been when Ms. Bilal was offended by Ms. Patrick’s reference to church if she had sat down with Ms. Patrick and her supervisors and explained her feelings. An apology and a better understanding of the situation would, no doubt, have resulted. The courts simply cannot be the arbitrator of all hurt feelings.
It is important that we communicate our feelings to one another, but if we must live in fear that a lawsuit will result each time we make a comment or use a word that someone, somewhere, sometime might find offensive, all human exchange of words and ideas will cease, and our world will be a worse place in which to live.