March 22, 2012 | MariaNews.com 

U.S. Department of Justice Drops “Face” Lawsuit Against Denver Pro-Lifer 

DENVER March 21, 2012 – Today, U.S. Justice Department attorneys agreed to dismiss all of the civil charges pending against Denver pro-life advocate Kenneth Scott, whom it alleged last year to have physically obstructed clients and employees of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains abortion facility in Denver.  Attorneys working for U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in Washington, D.C. had filed suit last year in Denver’s federal district court, charging Scott with ten separate violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, asking the court to assess a $10,000 civil fine and strap him with a federal injunction keeping him 25 feet away from the abortion facility.  The agreement to dismiss the charges followed in the wake of a ruling last January by United States District Judge Philip Brimmer, denying the federal government’s bid for entry of a preliminary injunction against Scott after an all-day hearing and ruling that the Justice Department attorneys had failed to meet their burden of proof that they would be reasonably likely to prove at trial that Scott violated the FACE Act.

“This is a monumental victory for the pro-life movement against the Department of Justice,” said Peter Breen, executive director of the Thomas More Society which represented Scott, together with Denver attorney Rebecca Messall.  Both Breen and Messall attended the settlement conference held this afternoon before a Federal Magistrate in the Alfred A. Arraj United States Courthouse in Denver.

Breen added:  “The charges against Scott, like a flurry of other charges the Justice Department recently has brought against pro-lifers all over the country, were fundamentally flawed and constitutionally obnoxious.  The Government claimed that when drivers stopped their vehicles for as short a time as a minute when entering or exiting abortion facilities to receive leaflets or talk with pro-life advocates, those stops constituted FACE violations.  But as pro-lifers have First Amendment rights to communicate their message to potential abortion patrons or providers, they cannot lawfully be sanctioned when their potential audience agrees to listen, if not necessarily agree with, their vital message.”  Breen concluded:  “We trust that this flawed legal theory will be jettisoned now that the courts have so roundly rejected it!”

A copy of the signed settlement agreement may be viewed here

More information about the case can be found here

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January 27, 2012 | MariaNews.com 

Catholic Homeschool Group’s Appeal Will Be Argued Before the Indiana Civil Rights Commission  

TCPR.net | Indianapolis (January 26, 2012) – Tomorrow, Friday, January 27, 2012, at 10:00 a.m., the Illinois Civil Rights Commission (ICRC) will hear an appeal filed by the Chicago-based Thomas More Society on behalf of a Roman Catholic home-schooling group, Fishers Adolescent Catholic Enrichment Society (FACES).  The appeal asks that ICRC overturn a preliminary ruling by one of the Commission’s Administrative Law Judges, Hon. Robert Lange, to the effect that FACES, based in Fishers, Indiana, unlawfully “retaliated” against a former student when it expelled her from this voluntary association of eleven Catholic homeschooling families.

The expulsion occurred a few months after the teenage student had filed a claim with ICRC, charging “disability discrimination” when she was denied a steak dinner at FACES’ “All Soul’s Day Ball,” a group-sponsored social event.  The approved  menu for all other FACES students was  a chicken dinner.  The claimant’s mother privately arranged with the local banquet hall that hosted the event to serve her and her daughter a steak dinner in lieu of the chicken served to others. The menu dispute arose when the claimant insisted that the chicken meal posed the risk of a serious, potentially fatal reaction given her supposedly severe food allergy.  After two years of intensive, costly litigation, however, the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) recommended that the Civil Rights Commission dismiss the disability bias charge, as FACES’ leaders had asked the claimant to bring a home-made meal to the event, thereby averting any risk of an adverse allergic reaction.  Yet, the ALJ also urged ICRC to affirm his initial ruling that FACES illegally retaliated when the claimant and her family were expelled.

Tom Brejcha, Thomas More Society’s president and chief counsel, hailed the ALJ’s ruling on disability:  “This disability bias claim was not only meritless, but spurious – a manipulative, petty move by an arrogant, selfish, and dominating parent insistent on getting her own way at others’ expense.  FACES more than “accommodated” the student’s allergy, bending over backwards to avoid any health risk, by directing her mother to bring a meal from home.”

On the other hand, Brejcha assailed the ruling on retaliation as lawless and extreme: “The claimant’s mother flouted the group leaders’ order to stop negotiating directly with the banquet hall about a special meal for her family.  This was gross insubordination, warranting her expulsion, and it was only one in a series of insubordinate acts she committed, all after the filing with ICRC.  Thus,  she was carrying on with utter arrogance as if she were a law unto herself, an ‘untouchable’ no longer bound by FACES’ rules, which remained binding on other families. If ICRC adopts this extreme ruling as an enforceable legal precedent, it will impose by sheer fiat of state government an unbearable burden on private associations (and businesses) in the State of Indiana, mandating that any group member (or employee) who merely files a bias charge with ICRC, even baseless as in this case, will be entitled to special treatment – an exemption from compliance with the group’s (or employer’s) rules.  This would turn the Indiana Civil Rights Law — an anti-bias statute – upon its head, perverting it into a mandate for discrimination in favor of charging parties before ICRC.  No group, let alone the few volunteer families in this case who merely wanted to provide social enrichment opportunities within a Catholic context for their home-schooled kids, could ever hope to function as a cohesive unit if its members were legally entitled to behave as they please, heedless of the group’s own rules and chain of command.”

Even though Thomas More Society undertook FACES’ defense on a pro bono basis, without charge, the home-schooling group had to cease operations in Summer 2010, owing to the many distractions and burdens bound up with having to defend such a protracted, intensive ICRC proceeding.  Had FACES been forced to pay its own way in defense of ICRC’s taxpayer-funded prosecution, it would have had to capitulate years ago.

The brief filed by Thomas More Society argues an entire litany of points:

• The Indiana Civil Rights Commission does not have authority to police the internal affairs of religious and social groups like FACES, especially about menu choices;
• The Indiana Civil Rights Law doesn’t apply because the claimant’s dietary issue did not restrict any major life activity and was exaggerated by the claimant’s mother;
• There is no duty under the Indiana Civil Rights Law to provide “reasonable accommodation” even for persons with legitimate major disabilities; and
• FACES was not guilty of “retaliation” as it treated the claimant and her family on an equal and non-discriminatory basis, enforcing the group’s rules binding on everybody.

A copy of the filing of FACES’ appeal is available.

FACES’ motion for leave to cite supplemental authority, namely, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the federal constitutional right of religious groups to hire and fire as they choose, is available.

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About the Thomas More Society

Founded in 1997, the Thomas More Society is a national public interest law firm that exists to restore respect for life in law. Based in Chicago, the Thomas More Society defends the sanctity of human life, the family and religious liberty in courtrooms across the country. The Society is a nonprofit organization wholly supported by private donations. For more information or to support the work of Thomas More Society, please visit www.thomasmoresociety.org.

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December 20, 2011 | TCPR.net

U.S. Justice Department To Face Off with Thomas More Society Attorneys Over Charges Against Denver Pro-Life Activist                     U.S. Constitution Protects Kenneth Scott’s Right to Counsel and Protest Outside Abortion Clinics….

DENVER (December 19, 2011) – Thomas More Society attorneys have joined Kenneth Scott’s legal team to defend him against the U.S. Attorney General’s civil complaint that Scott violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act). In June, Scott was charged by the Attorney General with physical obstruction against patients and staff attempting to enter and exit the Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

The Attorney General’s complaint claims that, because cars stopped to allow their occupants to speak with and receive literature from Scott, Scott was “obstructing” other traffic that might have wanted to pass, in violation of the FACE Act. The Thomas More Society will contend that Scott’s actions are protected by the First Amendment.

“The Attorney General of the United States is taking us down a dangerous path in trying to criminalize leafletting and oral communication on the public right of way — actions historically protected by the First Amendment,” said Peter Breen, Thomas More Society executive director and legal counsel. “These charges appear calculated not to obtain justice but to scare pro-life people away from the same abortion clinics that strongly supported President Obama’s electoral campaign. We intend to show that these charges are not merely false but frivolous.”

MariaNews.com will be following this story.

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