By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial to move forward, a lawsuit that dragged on for more than five years was definitively decided in favor of Jewish Prisoner Services International on Monday. The suit, filed by inmate Dennis Florer in 2006, against JPSI and its CEO, Chaplain Gary Friedman, intimated that because Friedman was under contract to provide services to inmates, he should be considered a state actor.
Florer vs. Congregation Pidyon Shevuyim had been rejected by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, then reinstated before it was rejected again last April.
At that point, Florer took the case to the Supreme Court. His attorney, Leonard J. Feldman, and a group of University of Washington law students who had taken up the case, withdrew after the 9th Circuit’s ruling. The Supreme Court rejected the case without comment.
“The net result is it clearly establishes that a chaplain, whether they’re staff or contract or volunteer, is not a state actor…when they’re functioning in a clerical or ecclesiastical capacity,” Friedman said.
Though Feldman told JTNews last year following the 9th Circuit’s dismissal that he didn’t believe the case would have wide significance, Friedman said that this ruling should curb predatory lawsuits against religious entities.