Cindy Clemishire seeks to overturn appeals court dismissal of lawsuit against Gateway Church

Lawyers for child sex abuse survivor Cindy Clemishire asked the Texas Supreme Court last Thursday to review and overturn the Fifth Court of Appeals’ recent dismissal of most of her civil claims in a defamation lawsuit against Gateway Church, its founder and former leader Robert Morris, and other current and former church executives and elders.

The Dallas-based Fifth Court of Appeals dismissed Clemishire’s lawsuit last month, arguing that proceeding with the case would violate the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, which prohibits civil courts from getting involved with matters of doctrine or church governance.

Appeals Court Justice Mike Lee found in his opinion that Dallas County District Judge Emily Tobolowsky "abused her discretion" when she denied Gateway Church's motion last November to dismiss Clemishire's defamation lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds. 

In their 158-page petition for writ of mandamus, however, attorneys for Clemishire, including Texas Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jeff Leach, warned that allowing her lawsuit to be dismissed under the protection of the First Amendment’s ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine could create an unprecedented and dangerous legal shield for religious institutions.

“The First Amendment is one of the greatest protections ever written into law, and we should fiercely defend it,” said Leach, an attorney with Gray Reed at a press conference outside the court.

“While the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine represents an important protection of religious liberties, it has never equated to full blanket immunity — not in Texas, and not anywhere else in America. Protecting a known sexual predator is not theology. Defaming and damaging the victim, a non-church member, is not church doctrine. Religious freedom is sacred. Protecting child predators is not,” he added. 

The following day, the Texas Supreme Court granted the Clemishires' unopposed emergency motion for a stay, temporarily halting the Fifth Court of Appeals' dismissal order while it considers the mandamus petition. The stay, issued Sept. 18, does not decide the case or permanently restore the dismissed claims. The court ordered responses to the petition by Oct. 19.

Morris, who founded Gateway Church in 2000, resigned in June 2024 after 55-year-old Clemishire accused him of sexually abusing her for 4.5 years in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12. At the time, Morris was serving as a traveling evangelist.

Morris was indicted in March 2025 on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child by a multi-county grand jury in Oklahoma in connection with his actions.

The former megachurch pastor pleaded guilty to the charges last October and was sentenced to six months in jail along with a 10-year suspended sentence. Morris, who is also required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, completed his jail term and was released from custody in March.

The defamation lawsuit filed by Clemishire and her father, Jerry Lee Clemishire, in June 2025 sought more than $1 million in damages, alleging that Morris and Gateway Church leaders publicly mischaracterized the abuse she suffered as a consensual "relationship" with a "young lady" instead of the sexual assault of a child after the abuse was made public in 2024.

In an affidavit dated Nov. 6, Clemishire said statements made by both Morris and former Gateway Church elders minimized her sexual assault, which caused her ongoing attacks from Gateway Church followers and members of the public.

On Thursday, she asked the Texas Supreme Court to help her get justice.

“For more than four decades, I have lived with the consequences of what Robert Morris did to me and what happened when powerful people chose to protect him instead of the child he abused. I found my voice because I believed the truth mattered and that speaking it could protect someone else. Never did I fathom that finding my voice and sharing my story would result in public ridicule, lies, and defamation from the very church that my abuser pastored,” she said at a press conference.

“Now I am asking the Texas Supreme Court to make clear that the doors of justice do not close simply because the institution involved is a church. Religious freedom should protect our faith. It should never protect those who abuse children or those who help shield them from accountability. This fight is bigger than me. It is for every survivor who has ever been told to stay quiet to protect an institution, a reputation, or a person in power.”

When she denied Gateway Church’s motion to dismiss Clemishire’s lawsuit last November, Judge Tobolowsky rejected the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine defense invoked by the church and elders John D. "Tra" Willbanks, Kenneth W. Fambro II, and Dane Minor. She made it clear that she was not convinced that internal communications and statements made by the church about Clemishire’s sexual abuse to members are protected under that doctrine.

The Fifth Court of Appeals dismissed the lawsuit last month, insisting that proceeding with the case would violate the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine.

In their petition for writ of mandamus Thursday, Clemishire’s attorneys asked the Texas Supreme Court to answer the following questions: "1) Does the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibit the trial court from exercising jurisdiction over relators’ intentional-tort claims? 2) Is determining what a church knew, and how it came to know it, inherently ecclesiastical and categorically beyond judicial inquiry? And 3) Does a church’s right to autonomy with respect to internal management decisions extend to outsiders who never united with, or even attended, the church?"

“For decades this Court, as well as numerous lower courts of appeal, consistently balanced these principles. This case, however, concerns a complete demarcation. While the court of appeals sought to apply the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine, its holding upsets the carefully circumscribed balance and provides protection far beyond the Constitution’s strictures,” Clemishire’s attorneys argued.

“The United States Supreme Court and this Court have emphasized the First Amendment does not grant a ‘general immunity from secular laws,’” they added. “The First Amendment ‘embraces two concepts — freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society.’”