Civil Procedure — interlocutory appeals — First Amendment

Listen to this article

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Procedure — interlocutory appeals — First Amendment

Where the district court decided a religious question, interlocutory appeal and reversal is appropriate.

“It is true that the error of the secular court—of the district court in this case—in deciding that whether Fuller is a member of a religious order is a proper question to put to a jury, allowing the jury to disregard the ruling by the Holy See, can in principle be corrected on appeal from a final judgment. But practice and principle are likely to diverge in this case. Suppose the religious question on which the jury was (wrongly) allowed to rule turned out not to be germane to the appeal, or that there was no appeal. Then there would be a final judgment of a secular court resolving a religious issue. Such a judgment could cause confusion, consternation, and dismay in religious circles. The commingling of religious and secular justice would violate not only the injunction in Matthew 22:21 to ‘render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,’ but also the First Amendment, which forbids the government to make religious judgments. The harm of such a governmental intrusion into religious affairs would be irreparable, just as in the other types of case in which the collateral order doctrine allows interlocutory appeals.”

Reversed.

12-2157, 12-2257 & 12-2262 McCarthy v. Fuller

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Lawrence, J., Posner, J.