Waterford church has First Amendment suit dismissed

A federal judge ended a lawsuit filed by the Faith Baptist Church against Waterford Township over a dispute involving the volume of the church’s band and local noise statutes.

A neighbor of the church complained several times to the police about the church band playing too loudly and the police came out to investigate the complaints on two or three occasions but did not issue any citations or file any charges. The church filed suit against the township, claiming that even the investigation of the matter violated their First and Fourth Amendment rights. The court dismissed those claims based on a lack of standing:

With respect to their First Amendment claims, Plaintiffs have not articulated any concrete or particularized injury. FBC continues to hold services with the music of its choosing. There is no allegation that the nature of FBC’s religious services changed in any way in response to the investigation of the noise complaints. There is no specific allegation that any right to free association has been impinged or that any church members were deterred from worshiping. There is no allegation that FBC was ordered to stop their music or that anyone was ticketed, charged, or fined. In fact, Waterford’s disturbing the peace ordinance, which they challenge as vague and overbroad, was not enforced against them. Further, the evidence suggests that Waterford does not have a present intention to enforce the ordinance against them.

The plaintiffs had also argued that the mere fact that the police had entered the church during services and band rehearsals was a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches. The court likewise dismissed that allegation:

The only remaining issue is whether Waterford police violated the Fourth Amendment by entering the church lobby and auditorium to investigate the noise complaint. It is clear that a church and its members do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy during worship services open to the public. Plaintiffs contend that the police did not appear during services, but during band rehearsals. “A useful test of whether a person has a privacy interest in a certain place is whether there are any ‘objective manifestations of any claimed privacy expectation.’ The objective manifestations of a privacy expectation must be in some place and an expectation to be free from a certain kind of intrusion.” There is no evidence that the church had a different, objective, expectation of privacy during band rehearsals as opposed to worship services. The doors of the church are unlocked all day and are not monitored. When the police entered, they were greeted and not told to leave. There is no indication that the church was attempting to keep anyone out during daytime hours. Accordingly, the court finds that Plaintiffs had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the church lobby or auditorium, that a search did not occur, and that the Fourth Amendment was not violated.

The church was represented in the case by the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian legal organization founded by Domino’s founder Tom Monaghan.