7th Circuit Upholds Dismissal of Claim Against Indy Star for Religious Discrimination

The 7th Circuit has issued an opinion upholding the district court’s grant of summary judgment dismissing the claims of Lisa Coffey and James Patterson, former editorial writers for the Indy Star, alleging that they had been dismissed because of their religious beliefs. (See, e.g., this report from a Christian newspaper characterizing the suit as a firing of Christians by homosexual management.)

The 7th Circuit, in a 3-0 ruling by a panel consisting of Circuit Court Judges Cudahy, Flaum, and Sykes, characterized Coffey and Patterson’s claims as being that the Star engaged in systematic discrimination against “traditional Christians,” opposed public or workplace expressions of religion and discriminated against those who were opposed to homosexual conduct as a matter of their religion.

The plaintiffs claim that after Ryerson became editor, the Star published “hordes of news articles” designed to portray homosexuality in a positive light, “softened” its editorial opposition to same sex marriage, promoted employees who were homosexuals or “homosexual sympathizers,” sought to purge the news and editorial operations of the paper of “traditional Christians,” and otherwise exhibited animus toward Christians who opposed homosexual conduct.

Initially, the 7th Circuit noted that its review was constrained by the procedural history of the factual allegations in the summary judgment motion. First, the district court rejected a lot of Coffey and Patterson’s identification of material facts in dispute because it was rife with argument, in violation of the local rules. Furthermore, their affidavits were rejected where the affidavits contradicted their deposition testimony. You are supposed to identify facts in dispute as objectively as possible, saving your argument for a later part of the brief. Additionally, courts will not allow self-serving affidavit testimony to trump contradictory deposition testimony without a good explanation for the contradiction. This resulted in the courts working on the law based mostly on the Indy Star’s characterization of the facts.

Coffey was in the editorial department at the Star who described herself as a “traditional Christian” who regards homosexuality as sinful. This apparently prompted her to write an opinion column against the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas which editor Dennis Ryerson rejected as unsuitable for publication due to its graphic description of anal sex. This led to several e-mail exchanges, at least one of which Ryerson regarded as religious proselytization in violation of the Star’s policy. The Star also believed Coffey was violating its policy against working overtime without permission. Certain administrative changes resulted in a reduction in Coffey’s hours. She was offered a choice between part time editorial work or full time news work. Rather than take the full time news position, she resigned.

James Patterson was also an editorial writer who described himself as a “traditional Christian” and regarded homosexuality as sinful. His work apparently required more editing than the typical editorial writer. The Court noted that: Patterson endorsed “Vernon Smith” when he meant “Vernon Brown.” He described JFK’s assassination as 30 years earlier instead of 40 years earlier. He wrote of Gov. O’Bannon’s acceptance of a resignation when Gov. O’Bannon had been dead for five months.

With respect to religion:

In 2003, after the start of the Iraq war, Patterson submitted an editorial asking the newspaper’s readers to pray for American troops. Neal revised the editorial slightly and added a prayer at the end, and the editorial ran in the newspaper on March 20, 2003. After its publication, however, Ryerson—who had just joined the Star—told Neal that he was uncomfortable with an editorial telling readers to engage in religious practices. Patterson claims that after this point if he submitted any religious-based opinion pieces that differed from Ryerson’s viewpoint, the articles would not be published, although he does not say how often this occurred.

After placing Patterson on an improvement plan, the Star kept him at the “written warning” discipline level. That level escalated when Patterson erroneously claimed that a proposed bond issue would cause a property tax increase and endorsed an AirTran bid for ATA Airlines without verifying the matter with anyone from AirTran, ATA, or Southwest, the competing bidder. This raised the DEFCON to “final written warning.” Nevertheless, editorials continued to get submitted with misspelled names and incorrect dates, resulting in Patterson’s termination.

The [district] court then concluded that neither plaintiff had established a prima facie case of discrimination under any theory and in the alternative held there was no evidence that the Star’s employment actions against Coffey or Patterson were pretext for discrimination. The court also rejected Patterson’s retaliation claim. Finally, the court held that there was no evidence to support the plaintiffs’ claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress. Accordingly, the court entered summary judgment in favor of the Star.

The Star points out ways in which it is obviously not anti-Christian. Many of its top managers are Christians, it has editorialized against same sex marriage, it has opposed the ACLU’s lawsuit opposing legislative prayer, and it’s front page name plate prominently displays a Bible verse.

Coffey’s claim, the 7th Circuit held, fails because she cannot show that she met the Star’s legitimate performance expectations and she cannot show that a similarly situated employee who did not share her religious beliefs was treated more favorably. Patterson’s claims were also rejected because he couldn’t show that he was meeting the Star’s legitimate performance expectations.