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Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Ind. Decisions - Two opinions of particular interest among those today from Court of Appeals

The first is the "Wicca case" from Judge Cale J. Bradford's Marion County Superior Court. See the earlier May 26, 2005 Indianapolis Star writeup by Kevin Corcoran here, headlined "Judge: Parents can't teach pagan beliefs - Father appeals order in divorce decree that prevents couple from exposing son to Wicca".

Judge Riley writes:

Appellant-Petitioner, Thomas E. Jones (Father), appeals the trial court’s Decree of Dissolution of Marriage (the Decree). We affirm, but order that subparagraph 10(j) be stricken from the Decree.

ISSUE. Father raises two issues on appeal, but we find one issue dispositive: whether the trial court lacked authority to order that divorcing parents, who are practicing Wiccans, take steps to shelter their child from involvement in and observation of “these non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals.” * * *

CONCLUSION. Because the trial court did not find that a limitation on Father’s parental authority to determine the religious training of his child was necessary to prevent endangerment to the child’s physical health or significant impairment of the child’s emotional health, we hold that the trial court abused its discretion in ordering the parents to shelter the child from involvement in and observation of “these non-mainstream religious beliefs andrituals[.]”

We therefore order that subparagraph 10(j) be stricken from the Decree, but we affirm the Decree in all other respects.

Affirmed, but ordered that subparagraph 10(j) be stricken from the Decree.

SULLIVAN, J., and NAJAM, J., concurs.

The decision is Thomas E. Jones, Jr. v. Tammy U. Jones (8/17/05).

[Update 2:11 p.m.] The Indianapolis Star has now posted this brief story by Michele McNail that reads in part:

The Indiana Court of Appeals today upheld the rights of parents to expose their children to Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion.

In its unanimous ruling, the court declared that a Marion County judge was out of bounds in approving a divorce decree that also directed the parents to shelter their 10 year old son from non mainstream religious beliefs and rituals. * * *

Judge Patricia A. Riley, writing on behalf of the three judge appeals court panel, wrote that trial courts can limit parent’s authority if it’s necessary to prevent endangerment to a child’s physical health, or significant impairment of the child’ emotional health. However, Marion Superior Judge Cale Bradford did not determine that was the case, the judges ruled.

The second is this decision from Judge Baker in James D. Jennings v. St. Vincent Hospital, et al. (8/17/05) that begins:
Today, we are confronted with a seemingly unresolvable case. We take this opportunity, however, to point out a deficiency in our current system of worker’s compensation. Hence, we begin our discussion with the following:
Because when the world starts to move from a primarily vertical (command and control) value-creation model to an increasingly horizontal (connect and collaborate) creation model, it doesn’t affect just how business gets done. It affects everything—how communities and companies define themselves, where companies and communities stop and start, how individuals balance their different identities as consumers, employees, shareholders, and citizens, and what role government has to play. All of this is going to have to be sorted out anew.
Friedman, Thomas L., The World is Flat—A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2005).

Appellant-defendant James D. Jennings appeals the trial court’s order to dismiss his claim for negligence against appellee-defendant St. Vincent Hospital and Health Care Center, Inc. (St. Vincent). In particular, Jennings contends that the trial court erred in determining that Jennings was a co-employee of St. Vincent and StarMed Staffing Corporation (StarMed), consequently making him eligible for StarMed’s worker’s compensation but barring him from raising a civil claim for monetary damages against St. Vincent. Thus, Jennings argues that the trial court erred in determining that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over his negligence claim against St. Vincent.

Although we conclude that the seven-factor analysis our Supreme Court established in Hale v. Kemp, 579 N.E.2d 63 (Ind. 1991), supports the trial court’s conclusion, we invite our General Assembly to review our current system of worker’s compensation in light of the circumstances presented here.

Judge Kirsch concurs, Judge Barnes dissents with opinion (starting on p. 19).

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 17, 2005 11:08 AM
Posted to Ind. App.Ct. Decisions