Sorry to dash anybody's hopes, but we've already been down this road of suing the tower. Our story can be found http://freeminds.org/women/defendingtruth.htm
I'm pasting some of that account below without the conclusion because at the time I wrote our story the case was still alive. However, last year there was a conclusion of the matter in that the Tennessee Appellate Court ruled against us. Although our case was really very secular, three very lazy-minded justices, who were far from constitutional law experts, succumbed to the easy way out that Watchtower attorneys argued for which was this: church disputes can not be settled by secular courts. And last year the Supreme Court would not even entertain a review of our case.
We had two excellent attorneys, one being the best in South Carolina, who couldn't overcome the challenge set before us which is, simply put, the Paul case. It appears if a U. S. lawsuit is about wrongful church disfellowshipping of a church member, the courts lean on the Paul decision even though the issue was different in our case and we could prove slander, libel, fraud, coercion, etc., by WT leaders at headquarters. We had a good case and the local court agreed, but, sorry to say, when Watchtower attorneys get through expounding on religion's constitutional rights, higher courts won't give shunning cases the time of day. Someday, this mindset will change when indignant people have enough of the power exerted by religion upon the government and then there will be justice for church members when they are wrongly disfellowshipped and subsequently shunned by family and friends.
Barbara and Joe Anderson
"In our Complaint, we allege that the Defendants were motivated by purely secular reasons when they engaged in the actions complained of and that the actions were part of a fraudulent conspiracy to silence me when I tried to assist victims of child sexual abuse and as I tried to prevent the church from sheltering child abusers, which state law requires be reported. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the church autonomy doctrine and the First Amendment do not bar court review of purely secular actions taken by church organizations or of actions motivated by fraud or collusion. But despite this, the Defendants have tried to mislead the court by willful mischaracterization of the case, that it will trespass on the First Amendment church autonomy doctrine and ecclesiastical abstention doctrine. This was and continues to be their major argument as they ignore almost every Count in our Complaint.
On October 6, 2003, Defendant's Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint was heard by the court. The court ruled to allow us, the Plaintiffs, to go forward on all eight counts and the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss was respectfully denied.
Then in December of 2003 Jehovah's Witnesses attorneys appealed, something that they are experts at. They filed a motion for Interlocutory Appeal asking the court to allow Defendants to take the judge's denial of dismissal of our Complaint to the Tennessee Court of Appeals in Nashville for review. Among other things, Defendants maintained [incorrectly] that every appellate court in the country have uniformly refused to recognize a fraud or collusion exception to the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine. They further contend that this court's subjecting an ecclesiastical tribunal's decision to excommunicate congregation members to secular court review conflicts with precedents of both the US Supreme Court and the TN Supreme Court.
Our attorneys responded by filing an Opposition to Motion for Interlocutory Appeal. The brief stated that Defendant's will not suffer any "irreparable injury" as they claim if the motion is denied; That discovery will not involve church doctrine and violate constitutional privileges; That there will not be needless, expensive and protracted litigation. Discovery will be short if the defendants will just show whether they did or did not fraudulently concoct the charges and did so hastily for purely secular reasons. If the defendants do not file frivolous objections to discovery requests, this discovery can be conducted promptly and inexpensively.
Further, our brief said that the Defendants have consistently and willfully mischaracterized the Plaintiffs allegations as a complaint about "internal church discipline." The Defendants have simply refused to acknowledge that the Plaintiffs contend that the Defendants fraudulently made up the allegations of spiritual misconduct which led to the disfellowshipping of the Plaintiffs. The brief ends with these words: "It can not be a policy of this state to permit the disfellowshipping of those who seek to protect the precious lives of young children. The Defendants can not hide behind purported constitutional privilege to continue their tortious conduct and maintain their conspiracy of silence to the detriment of young children of the church."
Finally, Defendants filed a Reply to Plaintiffs' Opposition to Motion for Interlocutory Appeal. Basically, again they claimed that inquiring into a religious membership decision is a constitutionally prohibited inquiry. Further, they stated, "as Anderson's well know, the outcome of this lawsuit will not affect their disfellowshipped status. That the legal process will not result in any secular mandate that the Plaintiffs be reinstated as Jehovah's Witnesses," although nowhere in the Complaint did we ask to be reinstated as Jehovah's Witnesses. Neither child abuse, nor any of the other paramount issues of importance in the Complaint are addressed by the Defendants in their brief.
During his opening remarks in the October 6, 2003 Defendant's Motion To Dismiss hearing, the kindly Tennessee judge, who was on the bench, stated that he didn't know anything about ecclesiastical law and never dealt with a case like ours before. He also discussed his very serious health problems making everyone aware that he was recovering from heart surgery and would probably need more hospitalization shortly. Yet, after considering closely both sides of the arguments presented, he saw good reason to allow our lawsuit to progress and overruled the Defendant's Motion to Dismiss.
However, when the Defendant's filed a motion for Interlocutory Appeal in December of 2003, this same judge succumbed to their wish after he held a very brief hearing on February 5, 2004, and allowed the case to go to the Tennessee Appellate Court in Nashville for review of his decision. Perhaps he thought this action prudent in light of Jehovah's Witnesses successful litigating record in the Supreme Court and subsequently in our case their constant use of the First Amendment church autonomy doctrine and ecclesiastical abstention doctrines as proof that he was treading on sacred ground and had made the wrong decision. Now we wait as our lawsuit's future rests in the hands of the Appellate Court to make a decision on whether the Defendant's Motion to Dismiss our lawsuit was correctly declined or not. It will take at least a year before briefs are filed and pleadings heard.
No matter what the future holds for our lawsuit, Jehovah's Witnesses who fought so valiantly to legally defend and establish their right to preach should be very concerned now about how they will be legally defending and establishing themselves in court by speaking the truth, inasmuch as whatever good they have done in the past will be tarnished and perhaps destroyed by government regulations if they lie about their involvement in harmful activities. If a religion has caused harm, they should not hide behind the First Amendment but be truthful or risk exposure and a loss of credibility."