Banks v. Brantley

Petitioner Clinton Brantley was the pastor of St. Matthew Baptist Church. Respondents Ira Banks, James Bell, and Vernon Holmes served as trustees of the Church. At a congregational meeting, Brantley stated that without his knowledge, the Trustees had placed a mortgage upon the Church's property in order to purchase nearby apartment buildings. He further stated the Trustees failed to insure the apartment buildings and that funds were missing because of their mismanagement. He urged the congregation to remove the Trustees from their position, and the congregation subsequently did. The issue on appeal to the Supreme Court centered on whether the pastor could use the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause to shield him from tort liability for allegedly defamatory statements he made about the church trustees at the congregational meeting. While the pastor acknowledged the non-religious nature of his statements, he contends the setting in which they were made and their relationship to church governance places the trustees' defamation claim outside the jurisdiction of civil courts under the First Amendment. The circuit court dismissed the claim, and the court of appeals reversed. The Supreme Court held the circuit court had jurisdiction to resolve this defamation claim using neutral principles of law and affirmed the court of appeals.View "Banks v. Brantley" on Justia Law