The U.S. Supreme Court has taken a look at an Iowa case but won’t take it on. The high court said yesterday it’s not going to hear the case of a woman who wants to sue her church. An officials of the Methodist Church in Shell Rock had talked with Jane Kliebenstein and later wrote a memo in which he referred to her, saying the “spirit of Satan” was at work in the congregation. The woman was furious when she learned of the memo, and she and her husband sued the church, saying the letter defamed her. A lower court threw it out, but they appealed and Iowa’s Supreme Court said the letter was not just an internal religious matter but had been circulated outside the congregation, and so she could go ahead. The high court’s refusal to hear the case means that ruling stands and Kliebenstein is free to go ahead with her defamation suit.
