Summary
applying the neutral principles of law approach to plaintiff's defamation claim against a religious organization
Summary of this case from Belya v. KapralOpinion
No. 20-168
11-05-2020
HYUNG JIN MOON, "SEAN", Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HAK JA HAN MOON, HOLY SPIRIT ASSOCIATION FOR THE UNIFICATION OF WORLD CHRISTIANITY, FAMILY FEDERATION FOR WORLD PEACE AND UNIFICATION INTERNATIONAL, HYO YUL KIM, "PETER," DOUGLAS D.M. JOO, CHANG SHIK YANG, KI HOON KIM, MICHAEL W. JENKINS, MICHAEL BALCOMB, FARLEY JONES, ALEXA WARD, JOHN DOES 1-6, Defendants-Appellees.
For Plaintiff-Appellant: AARON M. HERZIG, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, Cincinnati, OH. For Defendants-Appellees: LAURA G. FERGUSON (Alan I. Horowitz, Brian A. Hill, on the brief), Miller & Chevalier Chartered, Washington, DC. For Amici Curiae Hyun Jin (Preston) Moon and UCI: William A. Burck, Derek L. Shaffer, Jan-Philip Kernisan, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, Washington, DC; William G. Laxton, Jr., Jacob M. Roth, David T. Raimer, Jones Day, Washington, DC; Henry W. Asbill, Veena Viswanatha, Buckley LLP, Washington, DC.
SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007 IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT'S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION "SUMMARY ORDER"). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 5th day of November, two thousand twenty. Present: JON O. NEWMAN, ROBERT A. KATZMANN, JOSEPH F. BIANCO, Circuit Judges. For Plaintiff-Appellant: AARON M. HERZIG, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, Cincinnati, OH. For Defendants-Appellees: LAURA G. FERGUSON (Alan I. Horowitz, Brian A. Hill, on the brief), Miller & Chevalier Chartered, Washington, DC. For Amici Curiae Hyun Jin (Preston) Moon and UCI: William A. Burck, Derek L. Shaffer, Jan-Philip Kernisan, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, Washington, DC; William G. Laxton, Jr., Jacob M. Roth, David T. Raimer, Jones Day, Washington, DC; Henry W. Asbill, Veena Viswanatha, Buckley LLP, Washington, DC.
Appeal from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Buchwald, J.).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is MODIFIED and, as modified, AFFIRMED.
Plaintiff-Appellant Hyung Jin Moon appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissing his lawsuit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on grounds of ecclesiastical abstention. We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.
We review an abstention decision that implicates subject-matter jurisdiction de novo. See Hartford Courant Co. v. Pellegrino, 380 F.3d 83, 90 (2d Cir. 2004).
"Since at least the turn of the century, courts have declined to interfere with ecclesiastical hierarchies, church administration, and appointment of clergy." Rweyemamu v. Cote, 520 F.3d 198, 204-05 (2d Cir. 2008). "First Amendment values are plainly jeopardized when church property litigation is made to turn on the resolution by civil courts of controversies over religious doctrine and practice. . . . [T]he Amendment therefore commands civil courts to decide church property disputes without resolving underlying controversies over religious doctrine." Presbyterian Church in U.S. v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Mem'l Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 449 (1969); see also Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese for U.S. of Am. & Can. v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 709-10 (1976) (holding that the principle articulated in Presbyterian Church "applies with equal force to church disputes," like the present one, "over church polity and church administration"). Indeed, "where the identity of the governing body or bodies that exercise general authority within a church is a matter of substantial controversy, civil courts are not to make the inquiry into religious law and usage that would be essential to the resolution of the controversy." Md. & Va. Eldership of Churches of God v. Church of God at Sharpsburg, Inc., 396 U.S. 367, 369-70 (1970) (Brennan, J., concurring).
Unless otherwise indicated, in quoting cases, all internal quotation marks, alterations, emphases, footnotes, and citations are omitted.
At the same time, courts are not precluded from resolving disputes simply because the outcome would have religious implications. For instance, courts may apply "neutral principles of law" for the resolution of disputes involving religious matters, so long as the "neutral principles" allow the court to avoid deciding questions of religious doctrine, polity, and practice. Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 602-04 (1979). Relying on Jones, the plaintiff argues that the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine does not apply because we may rely on neutral principles of corporate, non-profit, agency, property, and gift law to grant him the relief sought.
Beginning with the claims for declaratory judgment, we hold that, based on the allegations in the complaint, there are no neutral principles by which we can adjudicate these claims without deciding the religious question of who the rightful successor to the late Rev. Sun Moon is. The complaint alleges that defendant-appellee Family Federation for World Peace and Unification International (the "Family Federation") is a Korean entity, but its precise corporate status is unclear. The complaint also alleges that the Family Federation has no articles of organization or written bylaws governing its affairs, as the Family Federation is "governed and operated pursuant to an established and recognized set of practices, procedures, policies and customs," in which the edicts and instructions by Rev. Moon were "authoritative and required to be followed by all Unification Church entities and organizations." Joint App'x 10. And both the complaint and the plaintiff's briefs are silent as to any Korean law that might govern the organization of the Family Federation in the absence of written documents. On the basis of these allegations, we find no neutral principles of corporate, non-profit, or agency law that would allow us to declare rights and obligations that concern "matter[s] of internal church government, an issue at the core of ecclesiastical affairs," Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 721, without making a decision "on the basis of religious doctrine or practice," Jones, 443 U.S. at 602.
Similarly, we reject the plaintiff's argument that we can rely on neutral principles of property and gift law to grant him the declaratory relief sought. The plaintiff's attempt to recast this case as a property dispute is belied by the complaint, which does not request any relief specific to certain crowns and robes that were given to him as part of his alleged appointment as the leader, and which vaguely refers to other "property and assets" without identifying specific property interests in them. Joint App'x 14, 21, 29-30. As in Milivojevich, which incidentally involved church property, "this case essentially involves not a church property dispute, but a religious dispute the resolution of which under our cases is for ecclesiastical and not civil tribunals." 426 U.S. at 709.
For the first time on appeal, the plaintiff argues that the Family Federation should be judicially estopped from arguing for ecclesiastical abstention because it argued against the doctrine in a different litigation. Because this argument was not properly presented before the district court, we do not consider it here. See Broidy Cap. Mgmt. LLC v. Benomar, 944 F.3d 436, 444 n.7 (2d Cir. 2019). Even if we were to consider it, "no action of the parties can confer subject-matter jurisdiction upon a federal court. Thus[,] . . . principles of estoppel do not apply." Ins. Corp. of Ir., Ltd. v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee, 456 U.S. 694, 701-02 (1982).
Alternatively, the plaintiff contends that a purported exception to the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine for fraud or collusion should apply. In Milivojevich, the U.S. Supreme Court noted the possibility of an exception for fraud or collusion "when church tribunals act in bad faith for secular purposes." 426 U.S. at 713. But as that phrase suggests, if the exception exists, it would apply where a religious entity engaged in a bad faith attempt to conceal a secular act behind a religious smokescreen. Here, the fact that the plaintiff has failed to articulate a secular legal right implies that he has also failed to articulate how the defendants may have deprived him of that right in the guise of a religious act. While we might not owe deference to a church's decision whose religious nature was a pretext for its secular purposes, we cannot intervene here to adjudicate what remains an essentially religious question over who the rightful leader of the Family Federation is.
Other than the claims for defamation for a statement made in April 2015, tortious interference, and violation of New York's whistleblower protection statute, each of the remaining claims depends squarely on the resolution of the plaintiff's core claim that he, not defendant-appellee Hak Ja Han Moon, is the rightful leader of the Family Federation. Accordingly, we lack jurisdiction to adjudicate these remaining claims on ecclesiastical abstention grounds.
With respect to the claims for defamation for a statement made in April 2015 and tortious interference, we have a neutral principle to adjudicate them: the statute of limitations. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's dismissal of these claims on the basis that they are time-barred, with the modification that such dismissal be with prejudice.
With respect to the claim for violation of New York's whistleblower protection statute, contrary to the district court's dismissal on ecclesiastical abstention grounds, we hold that a small subset of the allegations in support of the claim—specifically, that the plaintiff was "suspended from his role as the International President of Family Federation" for exposing that the Unification Church and Family Federation leaders "were benefitting from excessive salaries and benefits at the expense of the Unification Church and Family Federation," Joint App'x 37-38—can be evaluated without reference to any religious doctrine. Nevertheless, we affirm the district court's dismissal on grounds that the complaint fails to adequately allege what law or adopted policy of the Unification Church and Family Federation these officials violated (or, with particularity, what fraud they have committed) in paying themselves excessive salaries. See N.Y. Not-for-Profit Corp. Law § 715-b(a); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b).
To clarify, on ecclesiastical abstention grounds, we lack jurisdiction to adjudicate the claim for violation of whistleblower protections to the extent that it is based on the succession dispute or other issues of religious practice—for instance, that these officials were acting improperly by "dishonoring the directions and teachings of Rev. Moon to curry favor with Mrs. Moon," that the retaliation consisted of these officials "asking him to go along with Mrs. Moon's exercise of authority," and the like. Joint App'x 37.
We do not reach the unsettled issue of whether N.Y. Not-for-Profit Corp. Law § 715-b(a) confers a private right of action. --------
We have considered all of the plaintiff's remaining arguments and have found in them no grounds for reversal. For the reasons above, we MODIFY the judgment of the district court to reflect that the time-barred claims are dismissed with prejudice and all other claims are dismissed without prejudice and AFFIRM the judgment as modified.
FOR THE COURT:
Catherine O'Hagan Wolfe, Clerk