Covid-related citations issued by a California agency against a San Jose church and Christian school were the product of an invalid search warrant, an administrative appeals board decided.
The state Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA) Appeals Board handed down the opinion July 24 in favor of Calvary Chapel and the Calvary Christian Academy. The board concluded that a search warrant obtained from a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge to investigate the church property failed to demonstrate probable cause of Covid-related public health violations.
In addition, the appeals board found that information in the warrant, which was issued in 2021, misled the judge. The board also rejected Cal/OSHA’s argument that a good-faith exception to administrative rules was warranted and that the evidence obtained was admissible.
“The (administrative law judge’s) order rejected application of the good-faith exception, finding that the judge was misled by information (or the omission of information) that the division (Cal/OSHA) knew, or should have known, made the declaration false,” the appeals board decision states. “The order also concluded that the affidavit in support of the warrant was so lacking in probable cause that it would be entirely unreasonable for an investigator to believe such cause existed. We agree with the ALJ’s conclusions.”
Cal/OSHA inspectors searched the church property in late 2021 after obtaining a search warrant, according to the Murrieta-based group Advocates for Faith & Freedom, which represents plaintiffs in cases involving religious freedoms. The inspections led to 12 citations against the church, totaling more than $67,000.
The search warrant was sought after the agency received a tip that the church school was not complying with Covid masking requirements in place at the time. Advocates for Faith & Freedom emphasized that an academy employee who met Cal/OSHA inspectors outside the school building was not wearing a face covering. This information was related to the Superior Court judge, but it was deemed misleading by the appeals board.
The employee could have been wearing a mask inside the building but took it off after going outside to meet the inspectors, according to the appeals board ruling.
"The court’s ruling once again vindicates Calvary Chapel San Jose and Calvary Christian Academy, reaffirming the serious misconduct and overreach by the division," Julianne Fleischer, legal counsel for Advocates for Faith & Freedom, said in a statement emailed to the Southern California Record. "Cal/OSHA is not above the law. Government overreach has no place in our faith communities, and this decision rightly upholds that principle."
In September 2022, a judge ruled in favor of the church’s position, finding that Cal/OSHA’s application for a search warrant was “utterly devoid of detail.”
The appeals board also noted that the masking requirements in place at the time in California contained several exceptions. People with certain medical conditions were exempt, as were employees in the process of eating a meal. The omission of this information in the process of obtaining the search warrant was misleading, the appeals board said.
“We reiterate our decision that a reasonable and well-trained investigator could not have harbored any objectively reasonable belief here in the existence of (probable) cause …” the appeals board said in its decision.