Montana
Mont. Code Ann. § 41-3-201 — Montana child-abuse reporting statute (clergy named, doctrine and practice carveout)
- Clergy named as mandatory reporter?
- Yes
- Confessional exemption?
- Yes
- Statute
- Mont. Code Ann. § 41-3-201
- Clergy named
- Expressly
- Pending
- —
Montana's reporting statute names clergy directly. Section 41-3-201(2)(h) lists 'a member of the clergy, as defined in 15-6-201(2)(b)' among professionals and officials required to report suspected child abuse or neglect. The penalty grade is unusually firm: under HB 640 (2019), purposeful or knowing failure to report sexual abuse or sexual exploitation is a felony punishable by up to five years in state prison and a $10,000 fine, with the criminal statute of limitations eliminated for sex crimes against victims under 18. The reporting floor sounds strong on the page. The carveout lives two subsections later, in the same statute. Subsection (6)(b) exempts a clergy member from reporting when the knowledge came from a statement or confession made in clergy capacity, was intended to be confidential, and the speaker does not consent to disclosure. Subsection (6)(c) extends the exemption to any communication 'required to be confidential by canon law, church doctrine, or established church practice.' The third prong ('established church practice') is the load-bearing one. It turns on what a denomination has chosen to do internally, with no procedural burden on the clergyperson to substantiate the claim. In Nunez v. Watchtower (2020 MT 3), the Montana Supreme Court used that prong to reverse a $35M jury verdict against Jehovah's Witnesses. Both sides stipulated the elders were clergy and mandated reporters under § 41-3-201(2)(h); the case turned entirely on whether the church's internal practice of confidential elder-led judicial-committee investigations qualified under (6)(c). The court held it did, as a matter of law. The 2025 legislature tried to close it. Sen. Mary Ann Dunwell's SB 139 would have stricken (6)(b) and (6)(c) outright; the Senate Judiciary Committee tabled it 7-2 on January 29, 2025, and the bill died in process on May 23. A negotiated amendment, preserving canon-law and doctrine carveouts but eliminating the 'established church practice' prong, was on the table and never advanced. Montana is one of the states where a state supreme court has already construed the carveout broadly, and where the legislative fix died 7-2 in committee inside a single session. The work is keeping the 'established church practice' prong on the legislative agenda until a future session closes it.