Judge Charles Eskridge, a federal judge in the Southern District of Texas, has dismissed a lawsuit filed by The Satanic Temple, calling their claims “willfully inadequate and deficient.”
The Satanic Temple claims that abortion on demand is a protected religious practice.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of “Ann Doe,” featured claims from the joke Satanist group that a Texas abortion law, which bans abortion after 20 weeks, was preventing its members from performing their abortion “rituals.”
The suit was initially filed over two years ago, before the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was handed down last year, striking down the purported constitutional right to abortion. The Satanic Temple was allowed to amend its complaint (for a second time) after the Dobbs decision. It was this third amended complaint that was dismissed.
The [complaint] asserts claims under the religion and speech clauses of the First Amendment. It now differs substantially from prior versions in that it contains almost no factual detail and makes broad, vague allegations without even identifying the laws being challenged. Defendant Cecile Young is Executive Commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Pending is her motion to dismiss the third amended complaint. She argues that
(i) Plaintiffs lack standing to sue,
(ii) she is immune to suit, and
(iii) the third amended complaint fails to state a claim.
The motion is granted. The complaint lacks sufficient factual allegations either to support Plaintiffs’ standing or to overcome Young’s immunity to suit. Further attempt at repleading won’t be allowed.
Judge Charles Eskridge, in Houston, called the complaint “spare and unusually cryptic” and explained that the Satanists did not give sufficient information on how Texas law had a direct effect on their “belief structure.” The “supposed ‘religious statutes’ aren’t specified or explained in any way. Neither are ‘the Seven Tenets’ or ‘the ritual.’” [opinion here]
“[Defendant Cecile] Young argues that the third amended complaint is so devoid of explanation that Plaintiffs fail to demonstrate that any exception to sovereign immunity applies,” Eskridge said. “Plaintiffs don’t respond to this argument in any meaningful way.”
Much of the Satanists lawsuit was asserted on the grounds of the free speech and free exercise clauses in the First Amendment, but Judge Eskridge found that “their broad and conclusory allegations are devoid of actual facts, at most offering ‘labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action.’”
The Satanic Temple’s lawyer obviously did not take the case any more seriously than the Satanic Temple—which has stated that it doesn’t really believe in Satan—takes itself. Judge Eskridge went out of his way to slap down plaintiff’s counsel by name:
“Given the detail of the prior complaints and these substantial changes in the law, the deficiencies in the operative complaint are no doubt intentional. And indeed, the filing of a willfully deficient amended complaint is of a piece with the mulish litigation conduct by counsel for Plaintiffs, Attorney Matt Kezhaya, in this and other actions representing The Satanic Temple. Recently considered in this regard was whether to revoke his permission to proceed pro hac vice [to appear in a jurisdiction in which the attorney is not licensed] in light of sanctions entered against him in other federal courts after his appearance here.”
Judge Eskridge found that the lawsuit was filed in bad faith (doubtless as a publicity stunt), and dismissed the complaint with prejudice:
“The third amended complaint is willfully inadequate and deficient. It fails for jurisdictional reasons and would also likely fail for insufficient pleading of the merits. Plaintiffs will not be given leave to replead.”
In an indication of how annoyed the court was by the frivolous filing, Judge Eskridge noted that,
“Plaintiffs might have been better served by proceeding pro se [representing themselves] as applicable standards would dictate that their filings would be ‘liberally construed’ and ‘held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.’”
Ouch.