Atheists of Florida Amend Lakeland Complaint to Address Changes to Invocation Policy
by Kemp Brinson
The Atheists of Florida have amended their complaint in their lawsuit against the City of Lakeland seeking to have the invocations conducted by the Lakeland City Commission held unconstitutional.
Download Documents:
- First Amended Complaint and Verification
- Exhibit A – letter number 1
- Exhibit B – letter number 2
- Exhibit C – new invocation policy
My previous blog post on this lawsuit has a summary of the original complaint and my analysis. I also posted about the change in the City’s invocation policy. The most important change to the original complaint is that it has been amended to address the changes made by the new invocation policy.
The plaintiffs, Atheists of Florida, Inc. and Ellenbeth Wachs, claim that the new policy does not represent the actual policy of the City, which is more exclusively Christian-focused. Even if it did, the plaintiffs allege that the policy is inappropriate because it limits the prayers to “eligible clergy” of established churches, which, they claim, is an inherent endorsement of religious belief.
The First Amended Complaint makes some other changes. Lakeland Mayor Gow Fields is added as a defendant to the suit in his individual capacity (he was previously only sued in his official capacity as mayor). Nothing in the complaint makes any demand against Fields other than what is already being asked for from the City, so the practical effect of this change is negligible. Off the top of my head, I am not sure why they felt the need to do this. They may have done it to make sure Mayor Fields feels some personal pressure as a result of this action. There may also be technical reasons for doing this: issues involving lawsuits against public officials over constitutional issues can quickly get very academic, and the distinction between suing someone “individually” or “officially” can become important in some situations.
One interesting item is an allegation that Mayor Fields himself delivered the invocation on June 7, 2010 (Amended Complaint, para. 83):
83. On June 7, 2010, Defendant, Mayor Gow Fields, presented the invocation on behalf of the City of Lakeland, calling upon “Our Heavenly Father,” and ultimately praying “In Jesus’ name.” Defendant Fields also specifically singled out nonbelievers in his invocation by pointing out that they do not accept Jesus Christ or otherwise believe.
This may be the reason for adding Mayor Fields as a personal defendant, but I’m just guessing in the absence of looking at the applicable law. To deliver the invocation himself was probably a poor legal decision by Mayor Fields, and to specifically invoke the name of Jesus Christ in it doubly so. I think the law is pretty clear that this moves you away from the safety of existing legal precedent, which is discussed in more detail in part II of my post on prayers at local school board meetings. This is a debatable point, but I think most lawyers would agree with me that he would have been well-advised not to do this.
The First Amended Complaint also adds allegations about the various forms of harassment from the public that the plaintiffs have experienced as a result of their opposition to the invocations and the filing of this lawsuit. Legally, these allegations don’t mean much, they just make the complaint more interesting to read.
One final note – the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require written consent of opposing counsel or permission from the judge before filing an amended complaint. (Fed. R. Civ. P. 15) You can amend your complaint within 21 days of serving it on the other party without permission, but they were already outside this deadline when they filed it. Amendments are very common and this is not big deal – it will get sorted out one way or the other. They may have cleared it with the City’s attorneys before filing it, but normally you would say that somewhere in the amended pleading or file a separate stipulation or something so the court would know that you ran it by the other party and got their written consent. If they did, I missed it.
So what happens next? They have to serve Gow Fields again, in his “individual” capacity this time, and he’ll have 21 days to answer. The City and Mayor Fields (in his official capacity) have 14 days to answer the amended complaint, barring any oddities with the issue involving the filing of the amended complaint without leave of court or consent of counsel. They City/Fields may ask for, and will probably receive if they do, additional time to respond. The City will also probably elect to have their lawyer defend Mayor Fields in his individual capacity. If there is some reason why they can’t or won’t do this, he will need his own lawyer, but I expect that attorney will collaborate with and rely heavily on the work of the City’s attorneys.
My take on this remains unchanged. It is all going to hinge on what the City actually did/does to select invocation-givers, and we won’t know about that until we are deeper into discovery.
Update 8/21/2010: fixed typo, also, the Ledger has reported this story.
I hope that , during the discovery phase , it is ascertained whether or not the City of Lakeland has , sometime in the past , made a contribution or donation of public money (as a Ledger article shows they did to a Phillip Walker campaign)
to the megachurch where Marshal Seymour , child molester , was a volunteer youth minister and sunday school teacher.
That would require your accusation to have something to do with the subject of the lawsuit, which it doesn’t.
Here’s the invocation by Mayor Fields. He calls for a “Pastor Jones” and when the Pastor doesn’t appear, Mayor Fields gives the invocation himself.
http://tinyclip.tv/3a2e39ea
That clip is just the invocation.
Here’s a transcript of the end.
“Father, we pray this prayer, recognizing not everyone believes in you and calls on your son as their savior. And for those that do, we close this prayer in Jesus’ name. Amen.”