LegalReported
Meleah Thompson says she was abused as a child by men connected to her Oregon congregation in the early 1990s and that elders, told of it, invoked the two-witness rule and expelled her instead. Her suit, filed 20 July 2026, argues the coerced sexual acts were 'services' under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and that Watchtower knowingly benefited from concealing them. The allegations are unproven and no defendant had responded on the docket as of 24 July.
· July 20, 2026 · 8 min read
New York federal copyright rulingConfirmed
Judge Kenneth M. Karas denied the anonymous Jehovah's Witness's motion to cancel a DMCA subpoena to Cloudflare on 21 July 2026, but the subpoena stays frozen and the archivist has not been identified: a fight over a protective order comes next.
· July 21, 2026 · 14 min read
The Swedish thread mirrors Norway's: whether a state may withhold public funding from a religious group over its internal membership and shunning practices.Confirmed
Sweden's Agency for Support to Faith Communities (SST) ruled on 24 October 2025 that Jehovah's Witnesses failed new 'democracy conditions' for state grants, citing shunning and membership limits. On 7 May 2026 the Stockholm Administrative Court overturned the denial and ordered the grant restored; the agency has appealed.
· October 24, 2025 · 4 min read
DoctrineConfirmed
A July 15, 2011 study article urged Jehovah's Witnesses to shun former members it described, citing 1 Timothy 6:3-4, as 'mentally diseased.' The wording drew UK press coverage, a Portsmouth police complaint that produced no charge, and an Australian tribunal filing.
· July 15, 2011 · 3 min read
The $40 million judgment names one man who did not contest it; the church's separate settlement stays sealed.Confirmed
In 2023, Judge Dean Ochiai awarded a survivor known as N.D. $40 million against Kenneth Apana, a former Makaha congregation elder who did not defend the suit. The congregation and its entities settled separately and confidentially.
· July 18, 2023 · 6 min read
Leaked documentsConfirmed
The confidential 274-page "Shepherd the Flock of God" — which governs the Witnesses' judicial committees, the two-witness rule, and disfellowshipping — was leaked and published, exposing the internal disciplinary system to public view.
· February 5, 2019 · 2 min read
RulingConfirmed
In Highwood Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses v. Wall, a unanimous Supreme Court of Canada held in 2018 that a religious group's decision to disfellowship a member is beyond judicial review — closing a legal avenue for the shunned.
· May 31, 2018 · 5 min read
DoctrineConfirmed
A 2024 change retired the word "disfellowshipping" for "removed from the congregation" and eased a single rule about greeting former members. But the announcement, the no-socializing, and the shunning of critics all remained — and the change arrived just as the practice faced its sharpest legal test in Europe.
· August 1, 2024 · 8 min read