Parts of Davd Sills’ defamation case against the Southern Baptist Convention and several of its leaders have been dismissed by a federal judge while other parts will head to trial — short of an out-of-court settlement.
U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr. issued the ruling Sept. 29 in response to motions for summary judgment in favor of the various defendants. He sits on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Judge William Campbell (Source: Wikipedia)
Campbell allowed portions of the lawsuit to proceed against the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC Executive Committee, Guidepost Solutions and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler. Campbell dismissed former SBC presidents Ed Litton and Bart Barber, along with former Executive Committee leaders Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, from the case. He also dismissed all claims brought by Sills’ wife, Mary Sills, as well as claims for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy.
What remains are claims brought by David Sills concerning the 2022 Guidepost Solutions investigation and report and statements made by Mohler after publication of the report.
This week’s ruling does not determine whether Sills was defamed. Instead, it concludes enough evidence exists for a jury to consider some of his claims.
The lawsuit centers on allegations made by Jennifer Lyell, a former Southern Seminary student and later Southern Baptist entity executive, concerning a sexual relationship with Sills she said began while she was a student at the seminary. Sills and Lyell, who is now deceased, agreed they had a sexual relationship but disagreed about when it began, whether it was consensual and whether sexual contact occurred while Lyell was a seminary student.
Sills describes the relationship as consensual; Lyell characterized it as abusive.
David and Mary Sills (Facebook)
The Sills-Lyell dispute later became part of the broader Southern Baptist reckoning over sexual abuse, which is how Guidepost Solutions came into the picture.
Guidepost interviewed 300 or more witnesses and reviewed extensive documentation. But the investigation did not include an interview with Sills. The court noted Guidepost investigators met with Lyell multiple times, obtained documents from her and asked her for details of the alleged abuse.
Guidepost’s 2022 report repeatedly referred to Lyell as a sexual abuse survivor and Sills as her abuser. A Guidepost representative testified that the investigation used “sexual abuse” to mean nonconsensual sexual touching and that calling someone an “abuser” meant Guidepost was concluding that the person had sexually abused someone.
The report also said Lyell’s allegations had been corroborated and described her as having been sexually abused while she was a student at Southern Seminary.
Sills sued, arguing that describing him as an abuser was false and defamatory.
One important issue in the case is whether Sills should be treated as a public figure, which would require him to prove a higher level of fault. Campbell rejected that argument. The court therefore said Sills must establish negligence rather than the more demanding “actual malice” standard applicable to public figures.
Campbell found Guidepost could potentially be held responsible for publication of its report because it knew the report would be made public and drafted it with public dissemination in mind. The judge rejected, however, Sills’ effort to hold Guidepost responsible for publication of a separate list of alleged abusers.
Campbell concluded a jury could find Guidepost acted reasonably based on the evidence available to it. But a jury also could find that failing to ask Sills for his response was negligent, particularly because Guidepost’s own definition of “abuser” meant someone who committed nonconsensual sexual touching.
Consequently, the judge denied summary judgment to Guidepost on Sills’ defamation claim concerning the report.
The court reached a similar conclusion regarding the SBC and SBC Executive Committee’s publication of the report. Campbell described that issue as a “close call,” finding evidence supporting both sides’ positions. The organizations argued they reasonably relied on Guidepost’s expertise and independent investigation. Sills argued they should have independently verified the allegations before republishing them.
While Barber’s July 2022 statement that Lyell’s claims had been “investigated and corroborated” was substantially true, the judge said, Mohler’s statements raise a different question.
Mohler wrote that what happened to Lyell was “sexual abuse, unquestionably.” He later said the accusation against Sills had been confirmed and that statements Sills made during the 2018 confrontation confirmed the allegations.
Al Mohler
Campbell said there was no dispute that Lyell went to Mohler with allegations of sexual abuse or that the seminary followed its procedures. But the judge said a jury could disagree about whether Mohler acted negligently in saying the abuse allegation had been confirmed and what happened to Lyell was unquestionably sexual abuse.
Campbell also rejected Sills’ claim that the defendants conspired to defame him. The judge said the evidence presented did not establish that defendants had specific intent to defame him or knew of one another’s alleged intent.
What’s left active now are Sills’ defamation claims against Guidepost, the SBC and SBC Executive Committee and claims concerning Mohler’s statements. The SBC and SBC Executive Committee also face Sills’ defamation claim concerning publishing the 2022 list, while Guidepost was dismissed from the list-based claim.
The ruling does not determine whether Sills ultimately will prevail. Those surviving claims remain to be resolved through further proceedings, including potentially mediation or a trial.
Campbell also determined the ecclesial abstention doctrine does not prevent the court from hearing this case. That legal doctrine, which has been invoked several times this year to stop cases from being heard, says secular courts cannot intervene in matters that are ecclesial or theological or doctrinal.
Guidepost argued the Sillses’ claims should be barred by the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine. “The court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss on ecclesiastical abstention grounds because the claims asserted could be resolved without reference to religious doctrine and did not seek secular judicial review of a ‘theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government, or the conformity of the members of the church to the standard of morals required of them,’” the ruling states.
Note: Reporting on this story includes AI assistance in distilling the essence of the judge’s 55-page ruling and verifying the legal terminology.
Related:
Court records reveal tangled trail in Sills sexual abuse case
Mary Sills feared ‘disaster’ in family relationship with Lyell
David Sills won’t press case against Lyell’s estate
Jennifer Lyell, key figure in SBC abuse crisis, dies after brief illness
SBC Executive Committee publicly apologizes to sexual abuse survivor
Judge rules discovery may continue in Sillses’ lawsuit against SBC parties