Court Dismisses Suit Over Expulsion of Student From Catholic School

In Connor v. Archdiocese of Philadelphia, (PA Super. Ct., Aug. 16,2007), a Pennsylvania state appellate court upheld the dismissal of claims alleging defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress brought by the parents of a 7th grade Catholic school student who had been expelled from school. The claims grew out of a letter sent to other school parents by school personnel , allegedly falsely accusing their son of bringing a penknife to school. The trial court dismissed the claims under the First Amendment-based "deference rule" which denies civil courts jurisdiction over ecclesiastical issues. The appellate court agreed that "it is not within the purview of the courts of this Commonwealth, under the guise of a tort action, to review a decision to expel a student from a parochial school." It went on to say that, "if our civil courts may not review an action that challenges the legitimacy of a disciplinary decision of a parochial school, then, in like fashion, they may not review an action that challenges the dissemination of information regarding that decision, at the very least within the narrowly circumscribed limits of the parish community."