Opinion
No. CV 03-0824616-S
July 29, 2008
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO DISMISS
The plaintiff is an ordained Baptist minister. The defendant is a regional organization of Independent American Baptist Congregations. The Independent Baptist Congregations ordain ministers. The defendant American Baptist Churches of Connecticut (ABCCONN) does not ordain ministers but recognizes ordinations. It also provides a clergy placement service for ministers. The plaintiff was never employed as a minister, but sought employment through the defendant. Over time the defendant became concerned about the plaintiff's fitness for ministry and ultimately determined that it would "flag" his profile and not circulate it to congregations seeking pastors. The plaintiff who pursues this action pro se, essentially claims that the defendant by declining to recognize his ordination is interfering with his ability to obtain employment as a minister or pastor. Both parties agree that such employment is as an American Baptist clergy person.
The plaintiff's fourth revised complaint contains four counts: "breach of a promissory estoppel of an implied contract"; "defamation"; "deceit and fraud" and "negligent infliction of emotional distress." All of the claims arise out of the defendant's withdrawal of recognition of plaintiff's ordination. The defamation count alleges that the defendant blacklisted him from potential employment opportunities with churches associated with ABCCONN. The deceit and fraud count alleged that the defendant made false representations to injure and deprive the plaintiff of employment opportunities with American Baptist Churches. The negligent infliction of emotional distress claim relates to alleged representations to the plaintiff's wife that he would never be employed as an American Baptist Church minister.
The defendant filed a motion to dismiss seeking to dismiss all of the plaintiffs' claims because the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction.
A motion to dismiss attacks the jurisdiction of the court essentially
asserting the plaintiff cannot as a matter of law, in fact, state a cause of action that should be heard by the court. The motion to dismiss tests whether, on the face of the record, the court is without jurisdiction. In this regard the court must take the facts to be those alleged in the complaint including those facts necessarily implied from the allegation, construing them in a manner most favorable to the pleader. Filippi v Sullivan, 273 Conn. 1, 8 (2005). "Pursuant to the rules of practice, a motion to dismiss is the appropriate motion for raising a lack of subject matter jurisdiction." St. George v. Gordon, 264 Conn. 538, 545 (2003).
The defendant's challenge to the court's jurisdiction is a constitutional one. The defendant asserts that pursuant to the first amendment of the United States Constitution and § 3 of Article First of the Connecticut Constitution the government's ability to intrude into ecclesiastical matters is restricted. The defendants asserts that the plaintiffs' allegations would create an impermissible entanglement of the court in matters related to the defendant's doctrines and internal matters; and matters of a religious nature such as the ability to serve as a minister and to obtain employment as a minister in a religious organization. The United States Supreme Court over 135 years ago in Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall 679 (1872) established the rule concerning limitations on the court's interference in an ecclesiastical judgment. "[T]he rule of action which should govern the civil courts . . . is, that, whenever the question of discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical role, custom or law have been decided by the highest of these church judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final, and as binding on them, in their application to the case before them." Id. at 727. The U.S. Supreme Court has followed this doctrine in a number of cases including a case involving clergy discipline Serbian Orthodox Dioceses v. Milivojevich, 462 U.S. 696 (1976). In that case the Supreme Court overturned an Illinois Supreme Court decision which had interfered with a church's suspension removal and ultimate defrocking of a Bishop. The Illinois court felt such actions were arbitrary. This decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court which found in such action unconstitutional adjudication of quintessentially religious controversies. "The constitutional guarantee of the free exercise of religious authority requires secular institutions to defer to the decisions of religious institutions in their employment relationships with their religious employees." Rweyemamu v. Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, 98 Conn.App. 646, 654, cert. denied 281 Conn. 911 (2006, 2007). In the Rweyemamu case the Connecticut Appellate Court dealt with the ministerial exception to the application of employment discrimination laws to religious entities. The court noted: "The
commission's dismissal of the plaintiff's complaint for a lack of subject matter jurisdiction was based on its recognition that the courts and the commission recognized a ministerial exception with respect to individuals employed by a religious institution in a clergy or ministerial capacity. The commission and the courts have determined that such are the lifeblood of the church and any government (interference) between a church and its ministers would violate the first amendment to the constitution." 98 Conn.App. at 651.
"The ministerial exception is judicial shorthand for two conclusions: the first is that the imposition of secular standards on a church employment of its ministers will burden the free exercise of religion; the second, that the state's interest in eliminating employment discrimination is outweighed by a church's constitutional right of autonomy in its own domain." Equal Employment Opportunities Commission v. Catholic University of America, 83f 3rd 455, 467 (D.C. Cir. 1996). The ministerial exception is jurisdictional rather than evidentiary. Religious institutions may categorically resist a judicial intrusion implicitly in inquiring into their employment practices and relationships. Id. at 83f 3d 466, also see Rweyemamu v. Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, 98 Conn.App. at 653. In Rweyemamu the Appellate Court also recognized that the ministerial exception applied to the employment of ministers and clergy broadly defined. There is no question in this case that the minister or pastor positions that the plaintiff sought were clergy positions.
The present case unlike Rweyemamu is not an employment discrimination case; however, neither was the Serbian Orthodox Diocese v Milivojevich case supra. Similar to the Serbian Orthodox Diocese case the plaintiff here used the defendant's procedures as arbitrary and unfair. The Supreme Court in Serbian Orthodox Diocese clearly announced that there was no "arbitrary" exception to the constitutional prohibitions on courts interfering in ecclesiastical matters.
The court is without jurisdiction to determine whether the plaintiff's ordination as a Baptist minister should be recognized by the defendants or to review whether he has been treated fairly by the defendants with respect to recognition of his ordination.
CONCLUSION
The defendant's motion to dismiss is granted as to all counts of plaintiff's complaint.