Constitutional – Circuit court applied wrong standard in church dispute

Where members of a church sought discovery on whether members had been disenfranchised, the circuit court erroneously considered the First Amendment’s freedom of association to be a “jurisdictional bar to discovery,” rather than a qualified privilege subject to a balancing test.

Background

Appellants are members of McLean Bible Church, or MBC, a nondenominational, congregational church in Vienna, Virginia. MBC has a constitution that governs the requirements of church membership and the procedures for electing MBC’s “ruling body,” the Board of Elders. The appellants allege that MBC breached that constitution by denying some of its members the voting rights to which they were entitled during the June 2021 Board election.

After another election, MBC filed a plea in bar that attached a copy of the plan and a chart showing that all six nominees would have received over 75 percent of the vote, even if all new members who had been admitted in May 2022 had been excluded and assuming that all such members had voted to approve the nominees. The circuit court agreed.

This court affirmed the circuit court’s ruling that, with respect to the dissenters’ “desire to institute a reformulated 2021 election, the relief is unavailable and the request is moot.” It nevertheless remanded the case “to permit the circuit court to address ongoing claims relating to disenfranchisement of members, transparency and notice, and the secret ballot dispute.”

On remand, the circuit court’s denied the dissenters’ motion to compel discovery. It instead granted summary judgment to MBC.

Discovery

The dissenters argue that the discovery sought below relates to claims that MBC wronged them, in part, by disenfranchising like-minded congregants. MBC counters that only actions taken against the named parties can be relevant in this setting. MBC’s view of discovery here is too narrow. The requested discovery are plainly relevant to the dissenters’ claims regarding ongoing disenfranchisement of members who do not adhere to the Board’s views.

MBC represents that it “produced documents pertaining to the five appellants,” so the documents and information about other disenfranchised members would perhaps be less relevant to their claims if the universe of their potential remedies is restricted to those affecting only themselves. But neither party has briefed this issue, and this court declines to raise it on its own. Moreover, even putting aside the question of representative capacity, the requested discovery materials still relate to the dissenters’ claims.

Association

The dissenters argue that the circuit court erroneously considered the First Amendment’s freedom of association to be a “jurisdictional bar to discovery,” rather than a qualified privilege subject to a balancing test. This court agrees.

The party asserting a privilege based on the freedom of association must first “demonstrate an objectively reasonable probability that compelled disclosure will chill associational rights, i.e.[,] that disclosure will deter membership due to fears of threats, harassment or reprisal from either government officials or private parties which may affect members’ physical well-being, political activities or economic interests.” If such a showing is made, then the burden shifts to the party seeking discovery to demonstrate a “compelling need for the requested information.”

Religion

As MBC correctly points out, the First Amendment’s protections extend to one of the most fundamental religious matters of all: its “selection of those who will personify its beliefs.” But that is not necessarily the case when dealing with a congregational church.

Thus, although this case involves membership decisions, this court—and the members of MBC—are bound not by the Board’s decisions, but by “the will of the majority,” as expressed in the MBC constitution. And courts are free to interpret and apply the relevant provisions of that constitution just as long as they do so “in purely secular terms” and do not “rely on religious precepts.”

If a member who has not missed eight consecutive weeks is declared inactive, the Board has violated the MBC constitution. And that is exactly what the dissenters allege happened here. This court are surely able to count to eight without entering a “religious thicket.”

MBC counters that the eight-weeks inquiry is not, in fact, neutral because the eight weeks must be missed “without reasonable excuse.” It argues that what constitutes a reasonable excuse is a purely ecclesiastical question, and thus one outside this Court’s bailiwick (and its jurisdiction). In that case, this dispute would be at an end; no secular court could second-guess the Board’s earnest opinion as to what constitutes a reasonable excuse. But until that happens, courts retain jurisdiction.

MBC suggests that even if the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine does not apply, the “very process of inquiry” into these matters would infringe on the church’s First Amendment rights. This court disagrees.

Reversed and remanded.

Gaskins v. McLean Bible Church, Case No. 0185-25-4, May 19, 2026. CAV (Friedman). From the Circuit Court of Fairfax County (Bernhard). Rick Boyer (Integrity Law Firm, PLLC, on briefs), for appellant. Timothy Taylor (Brandon Elledge; Mark Churchill; Holland & Knight LLP, on brief), for appellee. VLW 026-7-199. 21 pp.

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VLW 026-7-199