Opinion
No. CV 06 5002874S
March 11, 2009
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON MOTION TO DISMISS
The defendants, Archdiocese of Hartford and Rev. Stephen Bzdyra, have moved to dismiss this action on the grounds that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution bars this court from adjudicating this dispute, and, therefore the court lacks jurisdiction.
Facts
The complaint alleges that the plaintiff served for seventeen years as the principal of St. Hedwig school, a parochial school in Naugatuck, Connecticut, run by the defendant Archdiocese. In 2003 several seventh-and eighth-grade female students complained about sexual remarks made by the defendant Bzdyra. Defendant Bzdyra instructed the plaintiff to contact Connecticut's Department of Children and Families concerning one of the students who complained. The plaintiff saw this instruction as retaliation against the student and her mother for good faith reporting of their concerns about defendant Bzdyra and did not follow the instruction.
Thereafter in August of 2004, the defendant Bzdyra told the plaintiff that he was concerned about her performance as principal of the school and wanted to address her shortcomings and wanted to meet with her to address those issues. However, the defendant Bzdyra refused to meet with the plaintiff to discuss her alleged shortcomings. In November of 2004 Bzdyra accused the plaintiff of not "standing up for him" in the October 2003 incident involving his unwanted sexual comments to the eighth-grade female students. During that same conversation he requested that the plaintiff resign. Defendant Bzdyra promised the plaintiff that she would have a teaching position for the following year if she resigned as principal. The plaintiff refused to resign as principal, her contract as principal was not renewed and she was not offered a teaching position for the following year.
Based on the foregoing the plaintiff brought this action alleging breach of implied contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith, promissory estoppel, wrongful termination and negligent infliction of emotional distress as to the Archdiocese and tortious interference with business expectancies as to Father Bzdyra.
Discussion of the Law and Ruling
The defendants argue that the court has no jurisdiction in this case under the First Amendment. The so-called "ministerial exception" to judicial authority precludes a court from adjudicating employment disputes between religious institutions and their religious leaders. The ministerial exception has been adopted by Connecticut in Rweyemamu v. Comm'n on Human Rights, 98 Conn.App. 646, 911 A.2d 319 (2006). In that case the plaintiff, a Roman Catholic priest, appealed to the trial court from the decision by the defendant Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities dismissing the employment discrimination complaint that the plaintiff had brought against his diocese. The commission invoked the ministerial exception to administrative jurisdiction over employment disputes between religious institutions and their ministers in determining that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The trial court rendered judgment dismissing the appeal. The appellate court upheld the trial court's ruling, stating:
As the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has observed, "[t]he ministerial exception is judicial shorthand for two conclusions: the first is that the imposition of secular standards on a church's 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 Opportunity Commission v. Catholic University of America, 83 F.3d 455, 467 (D.C. Cir. 1996). We are mindful that the protections afforded by the first amendment apply to state as well as federal governmental actions. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940) ("Fourteenth Amendment has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact . . . laws [that violate the first amendment's religion clauses]").
The ministerial exception's role in protecting important constitutional rights was first articulated in McClure v. Salvation Army, 460 F.2d 553 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 896, 93 S.Ct. 132, 34 L.Ed.2d 153 (1972). In that case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit concluded that the District Court did not have jurisdiction to decide a gender discrimination claim under Title VII. Id. The reason for the invocation of this ministerial exception was that "[a]n application of the provisions of Title VII to the employment relationship which exists between . . . a church and its minister, would involve an investigation and review of these practices and decisions and would, as a result, cause the [s]tate to intrude upon matters of church administration and government which have so many times before been proclaimed to be matters of a singular ecclesiastical concern. Control of strictly ecclesiastical matters could easily pass from the church to the [s]tate. The church would then be without the power to decide for itself, free from state interference, matters of church administration and government." Id., 560.
Rweyemamu v. Comm'n on Human Rights, supra, at 652-53.
The Court in Rweyemamu limited its decision to the employment of ministers and clergy:
In concluding that the commission properly relied on the ministerial exception in not exercising subject matter jurisdiction, we limit the exception's scope to the narrow scope recognized by the commission, namely that the exception applies only to the employment of ministers and clergy broadly defined. There is no dispute in this case that the plaintiff was a ministerial employee as he had been ordained a Roman Catholic priest in April 1992, and has served continuously in the Diocese of Norwich.
The issue of whether the ministerial exception may be applied to nonministerial staff of a religious institution is not before us in this case. We note, however, that Connecticut has not applied the exception to such situations in the past. See Commission on Human Rights Opportunities v. Archdiocesan School Office, 202 Conn. 601, 608, 522 A.2d 781 (reversing judgment of dismissal where commission had served interrogatories on archdiocesan school office during investigation of religious discrimination), appeal dismissed, 484 U.S. 805, 108 S.Ct. 51, 98 L.Ed.2d 15 (1987).
In Hartwig v. Albertus Magnus College, 93 F.Sup.2d 200 (Conn. 2000), the federal district court considered the case of a former priest who taught religious studies at Albertus Magnus College, a Roman Catholic college. The court found that even though the plaintiff taught religious studies, he did not teach extensively in the area of Roman Catholic doctrine or provide spiritual services or counseling. As such, the employment relationship between Hartwig and the College did not give rise to claims and defenses which were religious in nature. The court held that the Free Exercise Clause did not deprive the court of jurisdiction to decide the following claims: the claim for breach of contract, which alleged that the defendant breached its agreement to follow certain procedures when determining whether to reappoint the plaintiff Hartwig; the claim that another faculty member tortiously interfered with the plaintiff's business contract with the defendant; the claim that both defendants intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the plaintiff through their actions which concluded with his termination. The court reasoned that the resolution of those claims would not require an inquiry into competing interpretations of church law or policy. Rather, the central issue in each claim was whether the plaintiff was discharged for the reason the college stated: his alleged misrepresentation of his priestly status. The court stated that existing federal decisions "teach that the Free Exercise Clause does not bar court adjudication of such disputes where the religious affiliation of the institution or business is not pervasive or the duties of the aggrieved employee are more fairly characterized as secular, rather than ministerial or pastoral."
The court in Hartwig relied upon the following decisions which refused to apply the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to cases involving nonclergy employees of religious institutions. EEOC v. Mississippi College, 626 F.2d 477 (5th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 453 U.S. 912, 101 S.Ct. 3143, 69 L.Ed.2d 994 (1981); Shirkey v. Eastwind Community Dev. Corp., 941 F.Sup. 567 (D.Md. 1996); and EEOC v. Pacific Press Publishing Assoc., 482 F.Sup. 1291 (N.D.Cal. 1979), aff'd, 676 F.2d 1272 (9th Cir. 1982).
In EEOC v. Mississippi College, supra, the Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of the case of a professor at a Baptist college, holding:
CT Page 4740
The faculty members are not intermediaries between a church and its congregation. They neither attend to the religious needs of the faithful nor instruct students in the whole of religious doctrine. That faculty members are expected to serve as exemplars of practicing Christians does not serve to make the terms and conditions of their employment matters of church administration and thus purely of ecclesiastical concern.
EEOC v. Mississippi College, supra, at 485.
In Shirkey v. Eastwind Community Dev. Corp., supra, the plaintiff, a white minister in the United Methodist Church, applied for a position as a "community developer" with a Methodist Church-funded non-profit community development organization. The organization had been set up to promote economic development, reduce unemployment, and improve the quality of life in a predominantly black East Baltimore community. The plaintiff was denied the position because the church required that it be filled by an African-American. The plaintiff brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, alleging employment discrimination on the basis of race. In ruling on the defendant's motion for summary judgment, the Shirkey court rejected the defendant's argument that the action was barred by the Free Exercise Clause because resolution of the case would require the court to adjudicate a dispute between the church and one of its ministers. In reaching this decision the court found that the job description which the church approved for the position did not require the "community developer" to lead religious services, act as a pastoral counselor, and did not require specific religious training. Therefore, the position was not the ministerial type which the Free Exercise Clause sought to shield from court inquiry. See Shirkey, 941 F.Sup. at 577.
The district court in EEOC v. Pacific Press Publishing Assoc., supra, considered a case involving an investigation by the EEOC of a non-profit publishing company owned and operated by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The company was in the business of publishing religiously-oriented materials for the purpose of carrying out the church's work and required all its employees to be members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Lorna Tobler ("Tobler"), who was employed as a secretary by the company, complained to the EEOC of the practice of the company to pay female employees considerably less than male employees. According to the company, this was done at the direction of a church governing body known as the General Conference. The EEOC brought Title VII actions on behalf of Tobler against the company and the church alleging gender discrimination. Then, pursuant to a resolution passed by the General Conference, the company terminated Tobler's employment. The company based its decision on the conclusion that by suing the church, Tobler failed to exhibit fidelity to church authority, as required by Seventh Day Adventist teachings.
The defendants argued that the Free Exercise Clause deprived the district court of jurisdiction to adjudicate cases involving an employment dispute between a church and a church employee. Id. at 1313. However, the court held that while the church and the company were religious entities, Tobler was a secretary who performed secular functions and her relationship to her religious employer did not involve ecclesiastical concerns which the court was barred from considering. Id. at 1313.
In Nutt v. Norwich Roman Catholic Diocese et al., 921 F.Sup. 66 (D.Conn. 1995), the defendants asserted that the Free Exercise Clause prohibited jurisdiction over any negligence claims arising out of their employment practices. In rejecting that defense, the court held that the First Amendment did not relieve the defendants of liability for tort claims asserted under general and neutral laws of general applicability as long as those laws did not discriminate on the basis of religious belief or restrict or promote religious belief. Id. at 74.
In this case the plaintiff's claims involve discrete inquiries that do not intrude into purely religious matters or issues of church governance. The claims for breach of implied contract alleges that the policies of the Office of Catholic Education were not followed prior to the plaintiff's termination, thereby denying the plaintiff her contractual right to address her alleged performance problems and cure them in a timely manner. Similarly, the claim for promissory estoppel alleges that the defendant made a clear and definite promise on which the plaintiff reasonably relied to her detriment. The court will not be required to consider matters of religious belief or practice in deciding these claims.
The claim of wrongful termination involves a discrete pretextual inquiry into whether or not Bzdyra's efforts to terminate the plaintiff's employment as principal were motivated by or in retaliation for the plaintiff's refusal to "stick up for him" regarding his unwanted sexual remarks to eighth-grade girls. The claim involves no determination with respect to church teaching, doctrine or administration.
The claims of tortious interference with contract and infliction of emotional distress are tort claims which pertain to the defendants' treatment of the plaintiff, a thirty-year employee, vis à vis the secular common law of the state. Resolution of these claims will not require the court to intrude into religious doctrine or practices. For the foregoing reasons, the Motion to Dismiss is denied.