A San Benito County judge has dismissed a case against Rovella’s
Athletic Club that alleged the club violated a Hollister family’s
religious freedom.
Hollister – A San Benito County judge has dismissed a case against Rovella’s Athletic Club that alleged the club violated a Hollister family’s religious freedom.
Andrew and Christine Martinez sued Rovella’s in January after the couple’s son, a minor, was told to leave the club swim team because he refused to sign the team handbook. The handbook stated that the team’s highest priority is “God.”
Lawyers on both sides of the case have said they’re defending their clients’ religious freedom.
“(Rovella’s) did not in any way, at any time, deny service to anyone based on religion,” said Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute. “There’s nothing unlawful about a business displaying its religious beliefs and convictions.”
PJI, a nonprofit Christian organization, agreed to represent the Rovellas at no charge, Dacus said, because he sees the suit as “a very important case.”
“It would have been a terrible precedent to set … to further religious intolerance,” he said.
Judge Harry Tobias dismissed the case Aug. 8 because, according to court records, the suit “does not contain facts sufficient to state cause of action.” Tobias declined to comment Wednesday because litigation could continue if the Martinezes decide to appeal, he said.
San Jose attorney Gregg L. Kays, who represents the Martinezes, could not be reached for comment by press time Wednesday. But in his written response to PJI’s motion for dismissal, Kays said his opponents’ argument amounts to little more than “a lengthy and irrelevant dissertation on the defendants’ rights to freedom of speech and religion.”
“It is not the plaintiffs who are seeking to impose their religious beliefs on the defendants,” Kays wrote. “It is the defendants who are demanding that the plaintiffs state that they will accept and comply with the defendants’ views of God.”
According to their complaint, the Martinezes’ son entered the Rovella’s swimming program in 2005. He was eventually asked to join the club’s competitive swim team and to sign the team handbook. But the Martinez family was uncomfortable with overtly religious portions of the handbook – including a list designating “God” as the team’s top priority and a description of the team as “a Christian organization seeking to honor and serve Jesus Christ” – and they crossed out those sections before signing.
Club owner Steve Rovella refused to accept the handbook, according to the complaint, and he told the Martinezes that Rovella’s would not “lower our standards.” The complaint also states that the Martinezes eventually were told their son was not welcome on the team.
The Martinezes filed the suit with the San Benito County Superior Court on Jan. 23. At the time, Kays told the Free Lance his clients were seeking $4,000 and payment of attorney’s fees.
The Martinezes are Catholic, Kays said.
In January, a Sacramento civil rights lawyer and a law professor at the University of California, Davis, both said for-profit businesses cannot deny service to anyone based on their religion. But PJI attorneys Kevin Snider and Matthew McReynolds argued that Rovella was only expressing his religious beliefs.
“So long as a business does not refuse to engage in commerce with members of the public based upon religious affiliation, there is no violation of the Unruh Act,” Snider and McReynolds wrote.
The PJI attorneys also said the handbook’s religious references set priorities for the team, not its individual members.
