 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Heard v. Johnson11/21/2002
without infringing on First Amendment protections. Id. at 713. Even if the "fraud or collusion" portion of the Gonzalez exception has "concrete content," it is likely to be as impossible to apply as the "arbitrariness" portion of the exception. Furthermore, the Serbian Court's discussion of the "fraud or collusion" portion of the Gonzalez exception was itself dictum, since there was no claim or evidence of either fraud or collusion in the Serbian case. Finally, there are no extraordinary circumstances here that would warrant an application of a possible exception to First Amendment protections for church decisions.
Even if we were inclined to rush in where the Supreme Court has refused to tread, Johnson has made no showing that the exception should be applied here. On a 12 (b)(1) motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the crucial question is "whether we can conclude from reading the complaint that the . . . claim falls within the trial court's constitutionally circumscribed secular jurisdiction." Bible Way Church, supra, 680 A.2d at 427 (emphasis added). In discussing the possibility of a "fraud or collusion" exception, the Supreme Court noted that it would only apply when a "church tribunal act in bad faith for secular purposes." Serbian, supra, 422 U.S. at 713, 96 S. Ct. at 2382. In his complaint, Johnson never asserts that the allegedly defamatory manual was published for secular purposes by a church tribunal. " hen the First Amendment casts a shadow over the court's subject matter jurisdiction, the plaintiff is obliged to plead unqualified jurisdictional facts that clearly take the case outside the constitutional bar." Bible Way Church, supra, 680 A.2d at 430; see also Letica Corp. v. Sweetheart Cup Corp., 790 F. Supp. 702, 706 (E.D. Mich. 1992) ("courts have required greater specificity in pleading where the case implicates conduct which is prima facie protected by the First Amendment"). Johnson has pleaded no facts that would take his case outside the First Amendment strictures on our jurisdiction under a theory of "fraud or collusion."
3. Applying First Amendment Immunity Here.
As noted above, courts have consistently held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment prohibits judicial encroachment into church decisions where those decisions turn on church policy or on religious doctrine or practice. Except for contractual disputes, this prohibition includes church decisions concerning the employment of ministers because selection and termination of clergy is a core matter of ecclesiastical self-governance not subject to interference by a state. See Serbian, supra, 422 U.S. at 713, 96 S. Ct. at 2382 (civil courts are constitutionally "bound to accept the decisions of the highest judicatories of a religious organization . . . on matters of discipline, faith, internal organization, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law") (emphasis added); Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America, 344 U.S. 94, 116, 73 S. Ct. 143, 154-55 (1952) ("Freedom to select the clergy . . . must now be said to have federal constitutional protection as a part of the free exercise of religion against state interference"); Gonzalez, supra, 280 U.S. 1, 50 S. Ct. 5 (declining to assert jurisdiction over a dispute as to whether an Archbishop had acted properly in determining who would be appointed to a chaplaincy); Minker, supra, 894 F.2d at 1356 ("whose voice speaks for the church is per se a religious matter") (internal quotation omitted); Hutchinson, supra, 789 F.2d at 396 (declining to assert jurisdiction over a dispute relating to "appellant's status and employment as a minister of the church"); McClure v. Salvation Army, 460 F.2d 553, 560
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 District of Columbia Employee Leasing Services
Employee Leasing Services
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|