Court: Care facilities must offer aide for worship services

[rug]

Bob Egelko
Updated 7:59 pm, Thursday, August 21, 2014

When a mentally disabled patient needed a caretaker to accompany him to Jehovah's Witness worship services, his care center balked, saying it would violate staff members' religious beliefs - an objection like the one the U.S. Supreme Court heeded in its recent ruling on employers' religious rights.

But a federal court says California law, backed by other, still-binding Supreme Court decisions, requires the care center to provide an aide who will attend the worship service with the patient without necessarily taking part in it.

State regulations for the facilities, which provide 24-hour care for the mentally disabled, "do not require (staff members) to adopt any particular religious beliefs or to worship, engage in prayer, or otherwise participate in any religious services," a federal judge wrote in a ruling adopted this week by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Leo Terrell, a lawyer for the Southern California care center and its owners, said Thursday he plans to appeal. He said the ruling conflicts with the high court's decision in the Hobby Lobby case in June that allowed some private employers to deny contraceptive coverage to their female employees for religious reasons.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Court-uses-California-law-to-say-no-to-religious-5704242.php

The opinion:

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/08/19/12-55601.pdf

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. So you can force employees to attend religious services?

Even if you pretend that is not any sort of 'participation'.

[rug]

3. Read the District Court's decision (attached to the Circuit's opinion).

In particular, its analysis under the Lanterman Act, beginning on page 11 of the pdf.

[cbayer]

4. I'm not sure I would read it that way.

I think what it says is that a facility has to provide someone to accompany the patient. It would then be incumbent on them to identify someone who did not object.

Like i said below, I feel pretty certain that any JW church would be willing to provide that person.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

9. I think it hinges more upon whether the church

can provide a person who meets whatever sort of professional requirements need to be met. What if the church 'provides' a person to accompany the patient to the service, and the patient has a medical emergency during the service? Even if the healthcare facility's staff member is just outside the room, they may have just opened themselves (and the facility) open to a lawsuit for having left a 24/7 care patient unattended by staff. So now you have to have someone on staff who is willing to attend each and any type of service of any religion practiced by any patient, so that they can legitimately say they didn't leave the patient in the care of unlicensed personnel during the service.

[cbayer]

10. That is a good point, and the person who was to provide the supervision would have to be assessed

for their ability to do it appropriately.

On the other, based on my experience with the JW's, they would probably bring the service to the patient if asked.

My position is this - people that are institutionalized should be able to practice their religion unless it presents a danger to themselves or others.

If the patient is not stable enough to leave the facility without a staff member, then it presents a danger to them to go.

If providing a staff member means that the patient to staff ratio is impacted in such a way that others are placed in danger, then they just can't do it.

Other alternatives should be explored, but it might not be feasible.

The argument about someone being "exposed" to a religious service is very weak, imo, and that may be why they lost the case.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

12. If they can bring the services to the patient, all the better. nt

[cbayer]

13. Agree. I would wonder, though, if this particular facility which

appears to be very caught up in it's catholic identity, would welcome such a visit.

Frankly, this is not a facility I would choose to be in, particularly if not catholic.

But they are not always enough of this available, so maybe the patient had no choice.

[cbayer]

2. I feel certain that the church would provide someone who could be trained to accompany

this person to the services. While I understand the court's decision, to expect staff, who are generally precious few in number, to leave the facility is the real problem here.

The intersection with Hobby Lobby is pretty interesting, but it seems like a stretch.

[rug]

5. Page 12:

Furthermore, it is unclear how vendors, like Payne Care Center and Kingsley Home Care, could provide their clients with “the opportunity to attend and participate in” religious services without providing direct staff support, given that Payne Care Centerand Kingsley Home Care are care facilities that “provide twenty-four hour services to their patients, who are developmentally disabled and in need of behavioral modification care.” (Id. ¶ 30). The fact that Payne Care Center and Kingsley Home Care“provide twenty-four hour services” suggests that very few of their clients could attend religious services without direct staff support. Thus, the only way for Plaintiffs to provide these clients with a meaningful opportunity to attend religious services would be to accompany them to those services.

I think it's a carefully balanced decision.

[cbayer]

6. I don't agree with that. Many, if not most, 24 hour care services frequently

grant passes with families or friends. Patients even go on passes that may last for several days. As long as they are in the care of someone who can provide adequate care and supervision during that time, there is generally not a problem.

So, I totally disagree that there is no other way. I think this might, in fact, produce a substantial burden to accommodate the patient's religious wishes if there is a requirement for a staff member to accompany them.

[rug]

7. In this case, the facility apparently did not pursue that option.

In the absence of family or friends, it remains the facility's duty to provide that service to their patients. It does not appear the patients themselves were in a position to arrange alternatives.

Had your suggestion been followed, there would have been no lawsuit.

[cbayer]

8. Which makes me think that they were just trying to make a point.

Having been affiliated with these kinds of places in the past, I have frequently seen religious groups contacted to provide for a patient when there wasn't staff that could do that. Same thing is done when there is a language problem or a patient is deaf or any number of other things.

This place is trying to make the case that their catholicism makes it impossible for them to provide for the patient. That's wrong. I don't think they tried and wonder if they just wanted a lawsuit.

[rug]

11. It sounds like it.

The District Court really ripped into the Plaintiff's attorney.