Minnesota Lawyer Blog

As a special extra for our blog readers, I am making the full-text of the editor's column from Monday's Minnesota Lawyer available on this site.

Does Nebraska’s long-arm jurisdiction reach into Heaven?

By Mark A. Cohen
Minnesota Lawyer Sept. 24, 2007

In case you missed the big news all over the Internet earlier this week, Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers has filed suit against God.

Chambers — who has a law degree, but is not admitted to any bar — filed the case pro se. Presumably, no lawyer could be found to play Devil’s advocate for him.

In his suit, Chambers alleges that the Supreme Being has caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants.” Asking for injunctive relief, he also says God has plagued the world with “fearsome floods ... horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes.”

Chambers filed the action after becoming upset by a suit filed against a federal judge that Chambers believed was frivolous. The Nebraska politician says his suit was filed to show that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody.

Now I don’t mean to nitpick, but I am not sure that the Creator qualifies as just “anybody.” In fact, I am not sure if He (or She, if you prefer), qualifies as a person at all under the laws of the United States. But this is Nebraska after all. Besides, you can sue certain entities, such as corporations. For the sake of argument, let’s treat God as a nonprofit.

Since nonprofits and other corporate entities cannot represent themselves in court, God would have to hire a lawyer to represent Him if the Nebraska judge were to allow this ludicrous action to proceed. (Perhaps attorney Miles Lord would take the case. He has the right name for the job, anyway.)

While service of process would be tricky, Chambers had the good sense to ask it be waived. Chambers reasons that since God is omniscient, He has actual knowledge of the suit.

Anticipating a jurisdictional issue, Chambers argues that since God is everywhere, he can be sued anywhere. I suppose that if we do view God as a nonprofit, He is indeed “doing business” in Nebraska – although how much time He actually spends in the Cornhusker state is open for debate.

God’s lawyer could advance a couple of immunity arguments. For example, as the Supreme Sovereign, God would have a pretty decent sovereign immunity argument. He could also be legitimately found to have diplomatic immunity as the King of Kings. But let’s get by these thorny issues by saying that God decides to waive them.

Prior to discovery, it would be difficult to decide under which legal theory the case would proceed. Are the fires, floods and famines sent as intentional acts — as they are sometimes portrayed in the Bible and elsewhere — or are they side effects of a defectively created Earth? Under either scenario, Chambers’ case seems like a loser. Being omniscient, God could never actually be inattentive or otherwise negligent. And as goodness personified, he would not be able to commit the type of wrongful act that could be the basis of an intentional tort.

Putting all that aside, discovery with God would be something less than heavenly for Chambers. Since God knows everything, His response to even the most simple interrogatory would take an eternity to read. On the other hand, since God knows all, the defense would likely not make any discovery requests whatsoever.

The actual trial would be even tougher to conduct. As a child of God, every potential judge would have a disqualifying conflict of interest. And good luck finding a jury of God’s peers (although there are a number of $1,000-an hour Manhattan lawyers who no doubt believe themselves qualified).

Even if these problems could be surmounted and a trial were to be conducted, imagine how long it would take for God’s character witnesses to testify.

And what if God Himself wanted to testify in his own defense? How would He be sworn in? “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Me?”

I suspect any god-fearing jury would find in God’s favor. However, what would happen if, in some ungodly turn of events, Chambers actually won the case?

Not much. God would pretty much be free to go on doing what He has been doing since the beginning of time. It’s not like the judge could order God arrested for disobeying the court’s decree. Any law-enforcement officer who would try to carry out such an order would be best advised to dress for a trip somewhere very, very warm.

In short, I do not believe Chambers has a prayer with his lawsuit. To find the relief that he is looking for, he will have to appeal to a Higher Authority.

Mark A. Cohen is the editor-in-chief of Minnesota Lawyer. He can be reached at (612) 584-1531, or by e-mail at mark.cohen@minnlawyer.com.

The U.S. Supreme Court found religion today -- or at least issued two rulings with a religious connection.

In one case (Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation), the high court found that a taxpayer lacks the standing to challenge President Bush's faith-based initiatives program. Liberal groups blasted the decision, which leads to the dismissal of claims brought by a group of agnostics and atheists in Wisconsin. Personally, I didn't think they had a prayer with this one. The high court apparently agreed.

The second case, Morse v. Frederick, is actually a free-speech case involving a religion-related(?) message. The high court upheld the 10-day suspension of an Alaskan student who held up a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner at a school-sanctioned event. The student apparently had no idea himself what the bizarrely worded banner meant. School officials weren't so sure either -- but understandably thought it might have something to do with promoting drug use and made the decision to suspend him.

It strikes me as odd (though I have not checked to see if there is precedent for it) to have a free speech case in which the person whose speech rights were allegedly violated has no idea what he was trying to say.

In any event, in the future, students who want to make desperate bids for attention will have to stick with tradition and dye their hair blue or purple ...

There is an interesting piece in the Pioneer Press about a lawsuit over religion in public schools. It seems like these religious suits have really proliferated in recent years. I wonder if that means as a society we are getting more religious or less. Perhaps it just means that we are getting more litigious. In any event, here is a snippet of the article for your perusal:

St. Paul schools in fight over free speech

By Shannon Prather
Pioneer Press/ April 11, 2007

Boys Scouts troops and Little League teams try to boost their ranks by handing out fliers in St. Paul public schools. Church youth groups want in on the action.

The Greater St. Paul Area Evangelicals sued St. Paul Public Schools this week, contending a district rule barring religious fliers violates First Amendment free speech rights.

The district acknowledges it bans materials of a sectarian nature. But administrators' main concern is the church group's flier asks parents to take their children out of class each week, a school district attorney said.

The lawsuit is among the latest controversies over free speech in public schools.

Click here for more.