Dobrich v. Walls, 2005 WL 1812933 (D. Del. Aug. 2, 2005)
A Delaware federal district court has ruled that individual school board members enjoy absolute legislative immunity from a lawsuit brought by parents alleging that the board had developed, adopted, or implemented policies, practices, and customs permitting religious worship and prayer to in the district's schools in violation of U.S. Constitution's Establishment and Free Exercise of Religion Clauses. In rendering this decision, the court also ruled that the board's practice of opening its meetings with a prayer is constitutional. The court found that the parents failed to state proper legal claims against the individual defendants in their individual capacities, including where these claims were based on supervisory liability for actions by teachers and others. Two families in Selbyville, Delaware, sued Indian River School District (IRSD) over the inclusion of prayer at school board meetings, athletic events, banquets, and graduation ceremonies. The Dobrich family, who are Jewish, and another family identified only as the "Does" out of fear of retaliation, alleged that IRSD's practice of permitting prayer at school functions created "an environment of religious exclusion" and that the district promotes Christianity in the classroom. The families contended that students at Selbyville Middle School who participate in the Bible club receive preferential treatment and that at least two teachers openly espouse their religious beliefs in the classroom. Each of the defendants filed a separate motion to dismiss to suit. The motions addressed the plaintiffs' standing to sue and whether some of the claims were barred by the statute of limitations.
After granting the defendants' motions in part and denying them in part on the issues of standing and the statute of limitations, the court turned to the individual board members' claim that they enjoy absolute immunity from liability for legislative acts. The district court concluded that the plaintiffs' "allegations pertain to the development, adoption and implementation of policies, practices and customs for the District, activities which are part and parcel of the very type of legislative activity which has been recognized as sufficient to confer absolute immunity on individual members of local school boards." The court rejected the plaintiffs' claim that absolute immunity does not extend to invocations at board meetings because these involve a ministerial or administrative, rather than a legislative, act. Even if absolute immunity did not apply, the court held, the invocations are constitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983). That case held that the practice of opening a state legislature's session with a prayer does not violate the Establishment Clause. The court left standing the claims by: (1) the Dobrich family for past damages against the school board and IRSD; (2) Mr. Dobrich for damages and declaratory and injunctive relief against the school board and the IRSD based upon prayer at school board meetings; and (3) the Doe family for damages and declaratory and injunctive relief to the extent that those claims are against the school board and IRSD and not based on events for which the Doe family were not present.
Dobrich v. Walls, 2005 WL 1812933 (D. Del. Aug. 2, 2005)
[Link to full opinion]
[Editor's Note: For background on the dispute, see the earlier Legal Clips news summary, below. The Sussex Countian quotes Thomas S. Neuberger, an attorney from the Rutherford Institute (RI) who is representing school board vice president Reginald L. Helms, as saying that the court "ruled that board prayer is constitutional, period." From the publication's website, below, scroll down to the link to the August 10 article. Nonetheless, Mr. Neuberger has filed a motion for summary judgment without trial to dismiss the portion of the lawsuit asking that the board's policy of prayer before board meetings be declared unconstitutional." The district court has not yet ruled on this motion. For speculation as to the potential impact of the ruling, see the article from the Wilmington News-Journal. See also NSBA's BoardBuzz.]
[NSBA School Law pages on lawsuit]
Sussex Countian
By Patrick Varine
[Link to full story]
Wilmington News-Journal
By Sean O'Sullivan
[Link to full story]
[BoardBuzz on school board invocation disputes]