In Rose v. Washington Conf. of Seventh Day Adventists, decided Tuesday by a Washington state Court of Appeals, damage claims against a Pastor and the Seventh Day Adventist Church were dismissed on First Amendment grounds. The suit grew out of a lurid series of events. Gerald Rose’s wife, Theresa, who suffered serious mental problems, was in spiritual counseling for four years with Pastor Terry Campbell. Apparently the Pastor demonized Gerald and convinced Theresa that their marriage was irretrievably damaged. This led to Theresa hiring her daughter’s boyfriend to murder Gerald. In the end, the plan to kill Gerald failed, and Theresa’s daughter ended up murdered.
After Theresa was convicted criminally, Gerald sued the pastor and the Church. On appeal, the Court faced two issues. (1) Did Pastor Campbell breach a fiduciary duty to warn Gerald of a foreseeable danger that Theresa would kill him? (2) Was the Church liable for negligently supervising and retaining Campbell?
The Court found that personal counseling between a pastor and parishioners is a central tenet of the Seventh-Day Adventist faith. Physical and mental illness are seen as a by-product of sin. The Court held that since it would have to choose between competing interpretations of Church doctrine to determine if Campbell’s counseling gave rise to a special relationship and to a duty to warn, that inquiry would violate the First Amendment. Similarly, the claim against the Church for negligent supervision would require the interpretation of religious doctrine. It could not be determined through the use of neutral principles. So it too was barred by the First Amendment.
