From Pines Church v. Hermon School Dep't, decided last week by Chief Judge Lance Walker (D. Me.):
Plaintiffs The Pines Church and its lead pastor, Matt Gioia, looking for a new space to accommodate their growing congregation, requested a twelve-month lease to hold Sunday services at Hermon High School. The Defendant Hermon School Department's School Committee, after meeting and discussing the challenges associated with such a relationship, did not make a motion to vote on the requested twelve-month lease. Furthermore, the Committee members refused to second a motion to vote on a six-month lease. Ultimately, the Committee voted to offer Plaintiffs a month-to-month lease.
Plaintiffs filed this civil action, alleging that the School Committee's refusal to extend a long-term lease was motivated by animus against their sincerely held religious views …. The School Department offers a competing characterization of events, maintaining that the School Committee's decision was influenced by concerns about entering into a long-term lease agreement.
Before the Court are the parties' competing motions for summary judgment. Plaintiffs rely on the relatively blatant bias and the inferences that arise from the interrogatories posed by one Committee member who demanded to know from Pastor Gioia the Church's "position" on a spate of religious, political, and cultural flashpoints before evaluating whether to extend a lease on behalf of a publicly funded school.
Plaintiffs also rely on a somewhat more tepid bias, sanitized through fear-of-association comments by others, along the lines that association with the Church may not fit with the Committee's "goals" and may therefore create a "negative image" by not comporting with the School Department's "mission" and evidently its own beliefs. This evidence certainly is probative of Plaintiffs' position that the School Committee's refusal to offer Plaintiffs a lease was motivated by unconstitutional considerations, such as animus toward the Church's orthodox religious beliefs.
For its part, the School Department counters that the School Committee's decision, save for the one Committee member's bill of particulars put to the Pastor, simply resulted from humdrum, benign space and cost concerns, although that narrative is far from conclusive based on the summary judgment record. These competing characterizations of the Committee's motivations form the most conspicuous reason I deny summary judgment to the parties in favor of a jury trial.
More on the facts of the case:
