A City of Gallup employee paints over an anti-Donald Trump message along Coal Avenue in Gallup on Nov. 28.
Tribal court will decide LDS abuse suit
BY KRISTA ALLEN
WESTERN AGENCY BUREAU
PAGE, Ariz. – A Utah federal judge concluded earlier this month that the Navajo Nation courts have jurisdiction to hear sexual abuse claims against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by four Diné individuals.
U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby on Nov. 16 said that the sexual abuse claims by the individuals – only identified as RJ, MM, BN, and LK (fictitious names to protect their privacy, according to court documents) – must proceed in tribal court for the time being, rejecting the Mormon church’s attempt to prevent the litigation from going forward.
The Corporation of the Pres- ident of the LDS church and its Family Services in late May filed a federal case seeking a declar- atory judgment against RJ and MM, both of whom alleged that they had been sexually abused as children under the church’s now defunct Indian Placement Program, which placed Mor- mon Native American students in Mormon foster homes for a school year. Typically, the foster families were Anglo.
RJ and MM, male and female siblings from Sawmill, Arizona, earlier this year filed a lawsuit against the LDS entities in the Navajo Nation District Court al- leging that they were sexually abused during their time with their foster families in Utah, in the seventies and early eighties.
In response to the tribal court proceedings, the LDS entities filed the May suit.
To participate in the program, RJ and MM were baptized into the Mormon church around the ages of 10 and 11, according to tribal court documents.
RJ and MM “were transported off the Navajo Nation and moved to Utah, and placed with Mor- mon foster families.” This deci- sion was made by Family Ser- vices (formerly Social Services) while on the Nation, according to tribal court documents.
A complaint in the federal case states that, “As part of the (program), they (RJ and MM) agreed to be placed in the homes of LDS church members outside the (Navajo Nation) to attend public school … and while living in those homes, they were sexually assaulted.”
Mormon Native students who wanted to participate in the program did so voluntarily with the agreement of their fami- lies, according to federal court documents. And the decision to remove RJ and MM from their Sawmill home was made by the LDS entities while on the Nation.
William R. Keeler, one of the attorneys on the case, stat- ed that at that point in time, Mormon leaders were teaching Natives that they are “Lama- nites,” described in the church’s sacred Book of Mormon as literal Israelites.
“The LDS church taught that the Native Americans, including the plaintiffs, (are) Lamanites as described in the Book of Mormon,” Keeler stated. “The leaders of the LDS church felt driven to instruct the Lamanites within the Navajo Nation concerning their true ancestry and convert them back to the one true faith.”
Two more individuals, BN and LK, joined the tribal law- suit later. The lawsuit seeks written apologies, unspecified damages, changes in Mormon church policy to ensure that sexual abuse is reported first to authorities, and the creation of a task force to address any cultural or social harm to Diné in the placement program.
In the tribal court case, the alleged victims asserted claims for childhood sexual abuse, assault and battery, negligence, intentional infliction of emo- tional distress, equitable relief, and common-law nuisance, among others.
The church sought a dec- laration that the tribal court lacks jurisdiction to hear those claims and requested an injunction prohibiting the four individuals from proceeding with their cases in tribal court.
Shelby said last Wednesday that the church must exhaust all its options in the tribal court before seeking redress in feder- al court. Shelby granted the al- leged victims’ motion to dismiss the dispute with prejudice and denied the church’s request for a preliminary injunction to halt the tribal court proceedings.
Shelby said that the issue could avoid the exhaustion rule by showing that the tribal court clearly lacked jurisdiction over all the claims.
The church failed to meet the substantial burden of showing that the tribal court juris- diction is clearly foreclosed, Shelby said.
One goal of the program, in ad- dition to giving Mormon Native youth “better opportunities for education,” was to develop lead- ership and to promote greater understanding between Natives and non-Natives, according to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism.