{"id":315,"date":"2009-04-10T19:10:19","date_gmt":"2009-04-11T02:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=315"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:51","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:51","slug":"doj-moves-to-dismiss-chalkermrff-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/10\/doj-moves-to-dismiss-chalkermrff-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"DoJ Moves to Dismiss Chalker\/MRFF Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Obama Administration’s Department of Justice has filed a motion to dismiss<\/a> the lawsuit brought by Specialist Dustin Chalker and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.\u00a0 The lawsuit (discussed previously<\/a> and available here<\/a>) alleged that Chalker was forced to attend formations that had Christian prayers.\u00a0 It asked that the Courts direct that the DoD not require Chalker to attend formations at which a prayer was given.<\/p>\n

The motion to dismiss contains a variety of strong points (some of which have been mentioned on this site previously).\u00a0 In particular:<\/p>\n

Chalker does not ask that prayer be prohibited, only that he not be forced to attend.\u00a0 Such religious accommodation is already incorporated into Army and DoD regulations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though Chalker claims<\/em> he “sought relief from his chain of command,” an affidavit from his former Commander, who would have received that request, says Chalker did not request any such accommodation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chalker says<\/em> he “exhausted” the Equal Opportunity system and “obtained no substantial relief.”\u00a0 However, he NEVER used the EO system for the three complaints listed in the lawsuit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chalker\u00a0DID use the Equal Opportunity system for a fourth complaint that occurred after<\/em> the lawsuit was already filed. However, he did not appeal the EO decision, even though he was given instructions on how to do so.\u00a0 Instead of appealing, the MRFF amended the lawsuit<\/a> to include this “failure” of the EO system.<\/p>\n

As noted in an attached affidavit, this EO complaint was filed the day after<\/em> Chalker’s current commander APPROVED his request for accommodation to be excused from a formation.\u00a0 Thus, he received<\/span> the very relief for which he is suing.<\/em>\u00a0 In addition, as relief, his EO complaint\u00a0requested that the “government prohibit government prayers at all military ceremonies,” which is not the relief he seeks in his lawsuit.<\/p>\n

As with the previous lawsuit that was dismissed, Chalker did not use intra-military grievance mechanisms, including<\/p>\n

“his chain of command, or his unit\u2019s Equal Opportunity Advisor, or a Chaplain, or an Inspector General, or anyone else authorized by Army regulations to field such a complaint.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As with the previous lawsuit, the MRFF is mentioned only in a single footnote, which says they have no standing to be party to the suit.\u00a0 That footnote, however, makes a fascinating statement:\u00a0 because the MRFF voluntarily dismissed its previous lawsuit with the same allegations, it cannot sue over them again.<\/p>\n

Moreover, even if MRFF could establish standing, its \u201cpattern and practice\u201d claims would be precluded by Rule 41(a)(1)(B), which provides that \u201cif the plaintiff previously dismissed any federal- or state-court action based on or including the same claim, a notice of dismissal operates as an adjudication on the merits.\u201d<\/p>\n

MRFF has already voluntarily dismissed under Rule 41(a)(1)(i) two federal lawsuits raising the \u201cpattern and practice\u201d claims alleged here…Accordingly, the second of these dismissals \u201coperates as an adjudication on the merits\u201d that bars MRFF from bringing these claims yet a third time<\/em>. (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Further, the long list of unrelated allegations “identify no person, least of all Specialist Chalker, who is affected by the alleged practices,” which negates his standing to sue.<\/p>\n

The response also includes a long discourse on the history of prayer at military events, with examples dating back to George Washington and including the entire text of General Patton’s prayer (distributed with official resources at the General’s command during the war) as well as that of General Norman Schwarzkopf (whom the MRFF has held up<\/a> as an icon in dealing with religious issues in the military).<\/p>\n

The motion to dismiss appears to raise concerns that significantly weaken the legitimacy and viability of Chalker’s lawsuit against the DoD.<\/p>\n

As noted at the Military Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Obama Administration’s Department of Justice has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Specialist Dustin Chalker and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.\u00a0 The lawsuit (discussed previously and available here) alleged that Chalker was forced to attend formations that had Christian prayers.\u00a0 It asked that the Courts direct that the DoD not require Chalker to attend formations at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4,125,2,5218,7,10],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chaplain","tag-churchandstate","tag-dustin-chalker","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}