Opinion
DOCKET NO. A-1943-11T1
03-08-2013
METROPOLITAN DISTRICT OF THE CHRISTIAN AND MISSIONARY ALLIANCE, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. COMMUNITY CHURCH OF PARAMUS OF THE CHRISTIAN AND MISSIONARY ALLIANCE, INC. formerly known as COMMUNITY CHURCH OF PARAMUS, NJ, JOSEPH J. SMAHA, PETER FERRIERO, Defendants-Appellants.
James A. Caporrino argued the cause for appellants (MacDuffie Law, LLC, attorneys; Mr. Caporrino, on the brief). Arthur C. Hopkins, Jr. argued the cause for respondent.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
Before Judges Messano and Kennedy.
On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Bergen County, Docket No. C-0390-10.
James A. Caporrino argued the cause for appellants (MacDuffie Law, LLC, attorneys; Mr. Caporrino, on the brief).
Arthur C. Hopkins, Jr. argued the cause for respondent. PER CURIAM
Defendants appeal from the December 9, 2011 order of the Chancery Division granting summary judgment to plaintiff declaring, among other things, that plaintiff shall have title to the real property located at 515 Cedar Lane in Paramus, and to all personal property of defendant Community Church of Paramus of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Inc., formerly known as the Community Church of Paramus, [New Jersey] (Community Church). The summary judgment order required defendants to turn over the assets to plaintiff, and transfer title to the real estate, within ten days, and declared void a January 17, 2010 amendment to the certificate of incorporation of the Community Church, by which it attempted to sever its affiliation with plaintiff.
Defendants argue that plaintiff's decision to close the Community Church and acquire title to its real and personal assets is arbitrary and contravenes the expressed policies of plaintiff's organization. Defendants also contend that there were disputed material facts, and summary judgment, therefore, was improperly granted.
We have considered these arguments in light of the record and applicable legal standards, and we affirm essentially for the reasons expressed by Judge Harry G. Carroll in his written opinion.
I.
The Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) is a religious organization with its headquarters in Colorado. It is governed by a General Council composed of clergy members, representatives of its post-secondary educational institutions, lay representatives of its affiliated churches, members of its district executive committees, and others. A board of directors elected by the General Council "provides general oversight and management" of the organization. Local churches are generally organized into geographical or cultural districts led by "conferences" whose members are drawn from churches within the district. Each conference, in turn, elects a district executive committee.
Plaintiff Metropolitan District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (Metropolitan District) is a New Jersey not-for-profit corporation with authority over the "metropolitan district," consisting of member churches in New Jersey and portions of New York State. The Community Church is within this district.
The Community Church was incorporated in New Jersey and in 1929 acquired title to the real property in Paramus. In May 1994, the members of the Community Church unanimously voted to become affiliated with the CMA and to give "official consideration" thereafter to "becoming a fully connected church." Subsequently, on January 24, 1996, at the Community Church's annual congregational meeting, the members unanimously approved a resolution to become a "full member" and an accredited church of the CMA, and adopted the "Uniform Constitution for Accredited Churches" of the CMA.
Pursuant to that resolution, the Community Church thereafter filed in Bergen County a Certificate of Amendment to its Certificate of Incorporation, which stated, in pertinent part:
Article VIIThe Certificate of Amendment also provided that the Community Church "[wa]s affiliated and connected as a subordinate body" to the CMA and it "shall conduct its business in accordance with the Constitution . . . as set forth in the Manual of the [CMA] . . . ."
[The Community Church] is connected with and subordinate to the [CMA], the parent organization . . . . Should [the Community Church] cease to exist as a corporate body, or cease to be subject to the purposes, usages, doctrines and teachings of the [CMA], then all its property, appurtenances, and effects then owned or held by it shall revert to the benefit of and become the property of the parent organization . . . . Should differences of doctrine arise between [the Community Church] and [CMA] which do not yield to mediation, this reversionary provision may be waived . . . .
Article VIII
Should differences other than doctrinal issues arise between the [Community Church] and [CMA], then all the real and personal property, appurtenances and effects then owned or held by the [Community Church]
shall revert to and become the property of [CMA] . . . . Said real and personal property, appurtenances and effects then acquired shall be used by the [CMA] as it shall see fit, or it may sell the property and apply the proceeds in any manner consistent with its stated purpose.
The 1995 edition of the "Uniform Constitution for Accredited Churches of the [CMA]" provided for reversion of "legal title to all real and personal property (tangible and intangible), appurtenances, fixtures, and effects of whatever type then owned, held or used by [the Church], without regard to how or from whom acquired" upon the occurrence of a "reversionary event." A "reversionary event" was defined to include any of the following:
(a) the termination of this [c]hurch's existence for any reason, (b) the failure for any reason of this [c]hurch to be subject to or abide by any of the purposes, usages, doctrines, or teachings of [CMA] (c) the decision or action of this [c]hurch to disaffiliate or otherwise separate itself from the [CMA] without the prior written approval of such decision or action by the District Executive Committee (or its equivalent) of the district in which thisThe constitution further provided that the determination of whether a reversionary event has occurred "shall be considered and decided" by the district executive committee for the district in which the church is located and its decision "shall be final and binding" and "may not be challenged by any party in the absence of fraud, collusion or arbitrariness.
[c]hurch is located, or (d) the failure for any reason of this [c]hurch to qualify as an "accredited church" of the [CMA] (as such term is defined in the Bylaws of the [CMA].
Defendant Joseph J. Smaha had been pastor of the Community Church since 1995, and supported its becoming an accredited church with the CMA. Pastor Smaha stated in a certification that at the time he became pastor, the Community Church was in "dire financial straits" and that its income "was hardly enough to pay the heating bill during the winter months." Pastor Smaha "donated [his pastoral] salary back to the church" to help it pay expenses and was compelled to seek full-time employment outside the church in the Paramus Fire Prevention Bureau.
Further, in January 2006, Pastor Smaha and his wife agreed to purchase the parsonage home on the property from the Community Church "in order to generate money again, to repair the church, [and] pay the bills." In addition, Pastor Smaha's wife contributed money to the Community Church to help defray its costs and expenses.
By 2009, the Community Church had no Elders and the average attendance at Sunday services had dwindled to between twelve and twenty persons. Further, it was discovered that the Community Church's former treasurer had embezzled approximately $68,000 of the Church's funds. Pastor Smaha reported the embezzlement to the Metropolitan District on September 16, 2009, which prompted a series of meetings between Frederick Henry, a regional director for the Metropolitan District, and Pastor Smaha and other representatives of the Community Church.
At a meeting on September 28, Pastor Smaha advised Henry about the extent of the embezzlement and the sale of the parsonage house. He also told Henry about the average Sunday service attendance, and conceded that the Community Church "had not had an Elder Board for several years." At a subsequent meeting on October 14, Pastor Smaha acknowledged that "the church had been in a state of decline" and "was essentially destitute before the parsonage was sold."
On November 10, 2009, the district executive committee of the Metropolitan District met and voted to move the Community Church from "accredited church" status to that of a "developing church." A "developing church" is one that had been accredited in the past, but which subsequently failed to meet "the minimal standards of an accredited church" as determined by the district executive committee. The Metropolitan District also voted to close the Community Church.
The CMA's 2009 "Policy and Procedure Manual" provides that the district executive committee may declare a church to be no longer "accredited" and to be, therefore, "developing," if it finds two of the following conditions are present:
1. There have been three or more years of declining attendance with average attendance of less than 20 adults who are regularly involved in the life and ministry of the church.
2. There are persistent financial problems, e.g., inadequate pastoral support, bills in arrears on a regular basis, declining giving to church budget and Great Commission Fund, etc).
3. The congregation is no longer able to meet constitutional standards for governance (e.g., less than five qualified persons willing to serve on the governance authority, ongoing conflict in leadership, etc).
4. The congregation is no longer able to meet the requirements for accreditation as they appear in the Manual of The [CMA].
5. The recurrence of a reversionary event as spelled out in the Uniform Constitution for Accredited Churches, Article XVI, Reversion of Property, in the Manual of The [CMA].
6. There are internal problems or conflicts which require the intervention of an outside party in order to be resolved.
Apparently learning of the Metropolitan District's decision, Pastor Smaha drafted and, on January 17, 2010, filed, a "Second Amendment" to the certificate of incorporation of the Community Church which purported to nullify the earlier amendment by which it became an accredited church of the CMA and agreed to be bound by its constitution. The Community Church also declared itself an "independent church" after being formally notified of the decision of the Metropolitan District.
On September 28, 2011, plaintiff filed a complaint in the Chancery Division seeking a declaration that it had title to the real and personal property of the Community Church and asserting, among other things, that the Community Church's loss of "accredited church" status and its subsequent filing of the second amendment to the certificate of incorporation, constituted reversionary events. After defendants answered and the discovery end date expired, plaintiff moved for summary judgment. Defendants did not respond directly to plaintiff's statement of material facts submitted under Rule 4:46-2(a), although they did submit a brief and a certification of Pastor Smaha.
II
As noted, Judge Carroll granted summary judgment for plaintiff and issued a written opinion explaining his decision. He stated, in pertinent part:
The United States Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment does not dictate that a state must follow one particular method of resolving church property disputes and that any one of the various approaches may be utilized so long as it does not involve consideration of doctrinal matters. Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 99 S. Ct. 3020, 61 L. Ed. 2d 775 (1979). In so holding, the Court found that "the First and Fourteenth Amendments permit hierarchical organizations to establish their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government and to create tribunals for adjudicating disputes over these matters." Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New Jersey v. Groves, 83 N.J. 572, 577-78 (1980) (citing Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. 595). Thus, when this choice has been exercised and such ecclesiastical tribunals have been created to decide disputes concerning the governance of its subordinate bodies, the Constitution requires this Court to accept their decisions as binding. Further, with respect to cases involving hierarchical organizations, New Jersey cases have held that local church bodies are subject to the established discipline and authority of the central church body. Id. at 578 (citing American Primative Soc'y of Paterson v. Pilling, 24 N.J.L. 653 (Sup. Ct. 1855); Den v. Bolton, 12 N.J.L. 206 (Sup Ct. 1831)).We affirm essentially for the reasons expressed by Judge Carroll in his written opinion. We add only the following.
. . . In Graves, the New Jersey Supreme Court defined the hierarchical relationship as one where "the local church is an integral and subordinate part of the general
church and subject to its authority." Here, the most explicit provision demonstrating that such a relationship exists is the language in Article II of Defendant Community Church's Certificate of Incorporation as amended in 2000. Article II clearly states that Defendant Community Church "is connected with and subordinate to its parent religious organization, the Christian and Missionary Alliance[.] . . . A cursory examination of the Plaintiff's governance structure reveals the
hierarchical nature of its organization. The highest governing body of the C&MA is the biennial General Council; below that body are Council groups (organized by geographical or cultural districts) of which Plaintiff is one, and the Defendant Community Church is below the Plaintiff-district in this hierarchy.
Further, from the record, it appears that the district Executive Committee had reasons for downgrading Defendant Community Church from "accredited" to "developing" status. Pursuant to its established policies providing for when an affiliated church may be reclassified and/or closed, the Plaintiff's District Executive Committee found that Defendant Church's membership had been continuously declining, suffered from a lack of elder leadership, and demonstrated an inability to avoid persistent financial difficulties. As Defendants have made no meaningful allegations of fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness as to the actions or decisions of Plaintiff or its District Executive Committee that would create a genuine issue of material fact, this Court finds that the relationship between Plaintiff and Defendant Community Church is a hierarchical one and therefore grants Summary Judgment in favor of the Plaintiff.
. . . .
Even under a neutral principles analysis, the corporate documents of Defendant Community Church provide for a reversion of the church property in question to the Plaintiff . . . . Here, the determination by the District Executive Committee to move the Defendant Community Church into "developing status" constituted a "reversionary event" under the previously mentioned provisions of its "Uniform Constitution for Accredited
Churches." As such, the Plaintiff or its District Executive Committee could have concluded, as they did, on any of the various grounds enumerated in its previously discussed procedure governing church closures that the Defendant Community Church should cease operations and place its real and personal property in a trust for Plaintiff until legal title has been transferred.
"[T]he Establishment Clauses of our Federal and State Constitutions, forbidding the establishment of religion, severely circumscribe the role that civil courts may play in resolving church property disputes." Solid Rock Baptist Church v. Carlton, 347 N.J. Super. 180, 191 (App. Div.), certif. denied, stay vacated, 171 N.J. 440 (citing U.S. Const. amend. I; N.J. Const. (1947) art. I, ¶ 4). See also Presbyterian Church v. Hull Mem'l Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 449, 89 S. Ct. 601, 606, 21 L. Ed. 2d 658, 665 (1969); Chavis v. Rowe, 93 N.J. 103, 109-10 (1983).
"To ensure that judicial adjudications are confined to their proper civil sphere, the United States Supreme Court has developed two approaches to church disputes: the deference rule and the rule of 'neutral principles.'" Solid Rock Baptist Church, supra, 347 N.J. Super. at 191 (quoting Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral, 344 U.S. 94, 73 S. Ct. 143, 97 L. Ed. 120 (1952)); Maryland & Virginia Eldership v. Church of God at Sharpsburg, 396 U.S. 367, 90 S. Ct. 499, 24 L. Ed. 2d 582 (1970); Kleppinger v. Anglican Catholic Church, 314 N.J. Super. 613, 621-22 (Ch. Div. 1998)). When applying the deference rule, a court must "accept the authority of a recognized religious body in resolving a particular doctrinal question." Elmora Hebrew Center, Inc. v. Fishman, 125 N.J. 404, 414 (1991). In disputes involving a church with a hierarchical structure, a court "must defer to the authoritative ruling of the highest church authority in the hierarchy to have considered the religious question at issue." Solid Rock Baptist Church, supra, 347 N.J. Super. at 192. In resolving disputes within a congregational, rather than hierarchical, church, a court "should defer to resolutions by a majority (or other appropriate subgroup) of the church's governing body." Elmora Hebrew Center, Inc., supra, 125 N.J. at 414.
A "neutral principles" approach may be applied regardless of the governing structure of a particular church. Solid Rock Baptist Church, supra, 347 N.J. Super. at 192. Under this approach, a court applies neutral principles of law to "disputed questions not implicating religious doctrine or practice" and "examin[es] and interpret[s] . . . church documents such as deeds, constitutions, by-laws, and the like in accordance with wholly secular legal rules whose applications do not entail theological or doctrinal evaluations." Ibid.; see also Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 602, 99 S. Ct. 3020, 3025, 61 L. Ed. 2d 775, 784 (1979); Presbyterian Church, supra, 393 U.S. at 449, 89 S. Ct. at 606, 21 L. Ed. 2d at 665.
Clearly, the court's involvement in a matter of church governance would run afoul of the First Amendment. Defendants ask the court to intervene in a dispute between them and the CMA. This is a matter of "church government" which the Supreme Court has declared must be free of "secular control or manipulation" under the First Amendment. Kedroff, supra, 344 U.S. at 116, 73 S. Ct. at 155; 97 L. Ed. at 136.
We cannot parse the ecclesiastical constitution and rules of the CMA and the Metropolitan District and then apply neutral principles to determine whether the denomination's designated authority, the district executive committee, properly interpreted and applied such constitution and rules in this case. Matters of church governance, predicated upon its principles and hierarchical structure, should not be the subject of secular judicial resolution. "In disputes involving a church governed by a hierarchical structure, courts should defer to the result reached by the highest church authority to have considered the religious question at issue." Elmora Hebrew Ctr., supra, 125 N.J. at 414 (citing Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 727, 20 L. Ed. 666, 676 (1871)); Chavis, supra, 93 N.J. at 108.
Defendants argue that enforcement of the reversionary clause in the CMA constitution amounts to approval of an unjust forfeiture. We disagree. The United States Supreme Court has stated that in church property disputes,
[a]t any time before the dispute erupts, the parties can ensure, if they so desire, that the faction loyal to the hierarchical church will retain the church property. They can modify the deeds or the corporate charter to include a right of reversion or trust in favor of the general church. Alternatively, the constitution of the general church can be made to recite an express trust in favor of the denominational church. The burden involved in taking such steps will be minimal. And the civil courts will be bound to give effect to the result indicated by the parties, provided it is embodied in some legally cognizable form.Other courts have also held that the "parent body of a hierarchical church has the right to control the property of local affiliated churches, and, as a corollary, . . . the decision of superior tribunals in hierarchical churches will be enforced in civil courts." African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church v. Union Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, 64 N.C. App. 391, 414, 308 S.E.2d 73, 86 (1983).
[Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. at 606, 99 S. Ct. at 3027, 61 L. Ed. 2d at 786.]
Accordingly, we do not determine that application of the reversionary clause in this case, which the Community Church expressly approved and adopted when it elected to become an accredited church of the CMA, is either unjust or inequitable.
The remainder of defendants' arguments are without sufficient merit to warrant discussion in a written opinion. R. 2:11-3(e)(1)(E).
Affirmed.
I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original on file in my office.
CLERK OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION