De Laire v. Voris

George F. de Laire v. Gary Michael Voris, et al.

CIVIL No. 21-cv-131-JD

Opinion No. 2021 DNH 124

United States District Court, D. New Hampshire

August 11, 2021

ORDER

Joseph A. DiClerico, Jr. United States District Judge

The Very Reverend Georges F. de Laire, J.C.L. brings claims for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress against Gary Michael Voris, Anita Carey, and St Michael's Media, a/k/a Church Militant. In support, de Laire alleges that the defendants have published defamatory articles and a video about him that arose from a doctrinal dispute between the group known as the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which is incorporated as the Saint Benedict Center, Inc., and officials of the Catholic Church. The defendants move to dismiss the claims on the ground that the allegations, taken as true, do not state a cause of action for either claim. De Laire objects.

Standard of Review

The defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is brought pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Because the defendants filed an answer before filing the motion, however, the motion should have been filed pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c). Villeneuve v. Avon Prods., Inc., 919 F.3d 40, 49 (1st Cir. 2019). The same standard applies to both motions.

When considering a Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings, the court takes all properly pleaded allegations as true and resolves reasonable inferences from those allegations in favor of the plaintiff. Id.; see also Zhao v. CIEE Inc., __F.4th __, 2021 WL 2643410, at *2 (1st Cir. June 28, 2021) (providing standard for dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6)). Based on that view of the complaint the court determines whether the plaintiff has stated a plausible claim for relief. Villeneuve, 919 F.3d at 49. “Plausibility demands that the factual allegations ‘be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.'” Id. (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)).

Background

Church Militant is identified as a Michigan not-for-profit corporation that posts articles, videos, and podcasts on a website, churchmilitant.com. Gary Michael Voris is the president of Church Militant. Anita Carey was a staff reporter for Church Militant from March of 2017 to November of 2019.

De Laire is a priest in the Catholic Church and the pastor of a parish in Manchester, New Hampshire. He also serves as the Judicial Vicar and the Vicar for Canonical Affairs for the Diocese of Manchester. De Laire and the Bishop of the Diocese of Manchester are the Tribunal, a judicial body, for the Diocese of Manchester. De Laire oversees matters brought before the Tribunal that are generally challenges to the canonical validity of marriages but also include other matters. He also has the responsibility of promoting and protecting the rights of the faithful in the Diocese of Manchester. In those roles, de Laire's duties have included interaction with the Saint Benedict Center, Inc.

De Laire alleges that Church Militant identifies itself as doing “battle against sin, the devil and the ‘demonic rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.'” Doc. 1, ¶ 20. De Laire includes further information about Church Militant as espousing extremist views. De Laire further alleges that the Saint Benedict Center is loyal to the teachings of Father Leonard Feeney, who was a priest in the 1940s and founded the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Feeney was expelled from the Jesuit order and then excommunicated from the Catholic Church because of his incendiary and anti-Semitic views.

A doctrinal dispute arose in 2016 between the Saint Benedict Center and the Diocese of Manchester about the Center's interpretation of the phrase “extra ecclesiam nulla salus.”^[1] As a result, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome declared the Saint Benedict Center's interpretation unacceptable. Effective January 7, 2019, de Laire placed restrictions (“precepts”) on the Saint Benedict Center because of their failure to follow the decisions made by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which included prohibiting the Center from using any reference to itself as associated with the faithful in the Roman Catholic Church from using the name Catholic, and from having any sacramental celebrations at the Center. De Laire continued to work with the Saint Benedict Center and offered to have a priest in good standing provide ministry there.

Church Militant published an article about de Laire dated January 17, 2019, that addressed de Laire's role in the church's interactions with the Saint Benedict Center.^[2] The article featured a photograph of de Laire and is titled “NH Vicar Changes Dogma into Heresy” with a subtitle of “Fr. George de Laire cracks down on Saint Benedict Center.” In the article Voris accused de Laire of changing “a solemnly defined dogma of the Faith into a heresy” and of improperly interpreting church doctrine as applied to the Saint Benedict Center. Doc. no. 1-3, at *2. Voris further accused de Laire of waiting until Bishop Peter Libasci was in Chicago for a meeting to impose fifteen precepts on the Saint Benedict Center.

The article went on to claim that “work colleagues” of de Laire said he was emotionally unstable and that he was using the St. Benedict Center dispute to repair his image. The article also said that there had been three complaints lodged against de Laire over several years which alleged corruption, abuse of office, violations of the law, and incompetence. Voris claimed to have learned that de Laire was outsourcing his work and that he was vindictive and manipulative.^[3]

In the last paragraph of the article, Voris wrote that “[a]dditional questions are raised” by de Laire acquisitions. Voris stated that while Pope Francis was living at a hotel rather than the Apostolic Palace, de Laire lives at an estate near Manchester, New Hampshire, that he recently purchased. Voris stated that the estate is valued at 1.5 million dollars.

After that article was published, Voris travelled to New Hampshire in April of 2019 to interview members and supporters of the Saint Benedict Center about de Laire's actions and made a video about de Laire. Church Militant published the video on April 15, 2019, which de Laire contends includes defamatory statements about him. The video is titled “Attacking the Good Guys Who Are Fighting Back” and was published on Church Militant's website and then was published on other websites.

In the video, Voris stated that the diocese of Manchester was attacking the Saint Benedict Center because of their adherence to a dogma known as “Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus” that Voris translated as “outside the Church there is no salvation.” Voris identified de Laire as the person who was responsible for attacking the Saint Benedict Center. Voris stated that “Diocesan insiders tell Church Militant the attacks are designed in part by de Laire to improve his image in Rome so he can climb the ladder and be promoted. So he whipped up some spurious claims of heresy against the community and began hurling weighty canonical measures against its members in an effort to gain attention.” www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/vortex-attacking-the-good-guys (last visited Aug. 9, 2021). Voris stated that de Laire took advantage of a “misunderstanding” and issued a letter “stripping the [Saint Benedict Center] of its ability to have a dioscesan-approved priest offer daily Mass, which had been the case for close to a decade.” Id.

On June 25, 2019, Church Militant published another article, which was written by Anita Carey. Carey reported the demolition of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Laconia, New Hampshire. Carey stated that de Laire disagreed with the interpretation of canon law offered by a lawyer in Mobile, Alabama, and approved the demolition. Carey stated that de Laire had previously targeted the Saint Benedict Center. Carey repeated that complaints had been lodged against de Laire which alleged corruption, abuse of office, violations of the law, and incompetence. Carey also repeated that de Laire owned an expensive home and added that a tax lien had been placed on it.

De Laire brought suit against Church Militant, Voris, and Carey, alleging that the articles and video defamed him and caused intentional infliction of emotional distress. The defendants moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, which was denied. They now move to dismiss for failure to state actionable claims.

Discussion

In support of the motion to dismiss, the defendants contend that some of the statements that de Laire challenges are opinions and other statements are true so that they do not support a claim for defamation. They contend that the allegations also do not support a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress because they do not show actions that are either extreme or outrageous. De Laire objects to the motion on the grounds that the alleged statements are defamatory and sufficient to support a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

A. Defamation

To state a claim for defamation under New Hampshire law, a plaintiff must allege facts to show that the defendants did not exercise reasonable care when they published a false and defamatory statement about the defendant to a third party.^[4]Martin v. Mooney, 448 F.Supp.3d 72, 84 (D.N.H. 2020). Generally, a defamatory statement must be both false and factual, not a statement of opinion. Automated Transactions, LLC v. Am. Bankers Ass'n, 172 N.H. 528, 532-33 (2019). A statement of opinion may be actionable, however, if “it may reasonably be understood to imply the existence of defamatory fact as the basis for the...