The first prominent “clergy malpractice” lawsuit began in March 1980, after Kenneth Nally committed suicide at the age of 24 and his parents sued Grace Community Church for $1 million — breaking the wall of immunity that had long sheltered clergy from the tidal wave of tort litigation.
Nally had joined Grace Community, an independent evangelical church, in 1974 while studying at UCLA. His parents were Roman Catholic.
The plaintiffs charged that one of the church’s pastors had discouraged Nally from seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist.
Court records demonstrated, however, that Nally had seen a psychiatrist and other mental health professionals in the period leading to his death, and had also taken a prescribed psychiatric drug, Elavil, known to increase chances of suicide.
Shortly after the suit was filed, Samuel Ericsson, counsel for the defense, said, “The true facts...will completely exonerate the church, its pastor and staff of any wrongdoing.”
The church’s senior pastor, the Reverend John MacArthur, stated, “The Bible is on trial, Biblical counseling is on trial.”
The outcome at the trial court level was shocking. The church and its pastor were found guilty of malpractice and negligence and saddled with a multimillion-dollar judgment which was almost certain to bankrupt them.
Groups representing more than 6,000 churches and religious organizations rallied in support of Grace Community Church and, 10 years later, Ericsson was proven right. Ultimately, on April 3, 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a November 1988 ruling by the California Supreme Court which dismissed the suit, thus ending a decade of costly litigation.
But that 10-year breach in the wall of First Amendment protection was broadly and eagerly exploited. Money-motivated “plaintiffs” and lawyers filed scores of lawsuits, and the ball hasn’t stopped rolling to date. Clergy have been forced to turn to insurance as a shield against the threat of costly litigation.
And though Grace Community Church and its clergy were ultimately vindicated, it was not without a long and expensive legal ordeal.
As the Nally case neared its final stages, the Reverend William North, then president of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, commented on the vulnerability of clergy of all denominations: “The relationship between the clergy person and the parishioner was sacrosanct. You just didn’t think of suing your priest or your rabbi or your minister.”
Oliver Thomas of the National Council of Churches and past general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., cut right to the point: “They are after us just like everybody else, and we have to be prepared to do our ministry in a very litigious society.”
In the mid 1980s, some 40,000 ministers in the United States purchased clergy malpractice insurance. That number has climbed sharply in the face of frivolous lawsuits and other attacks against a wide variety of religions. According to one insurance company, the number of churches to which it provides clergy malpractice coverage increased from roughly half in the 1980s to virtually 100 percent today.
In the interest of providing a medium for amicable settlements out of court, the Institute for Christian Conciliation maintains a national panel of mediators and arbitrators, trained and certified to assist in resolving disputes; a nonprofit organization, it can be reached at (406) 256-1583.
While this is a constructive step, it is of value to remember that a clergy member’s responsibility is, and always has been, to provide spiritual comfort, care and religious guidance to those who have come to them for help.
Certainly, those few wayward members of the clergy who engage in actual crimes — embezzlement, assault or the like — should be held accountable. After all, every walk of life has its criminals. But fictitious, money-motivated claims make a mockery of justice and must not be tolerated.
While the country and its politicians are in an uproar over the state of the courts and the exorbitant costs of litigation, proposing curbs and limitations, little attention is paid to this aspect of the problem which faces the courts — an aspect that is cracking the foundation of one of America’s most valued and cherished institutions: religion.
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