Case ID: hill_6/html/0530-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court, Nelson, Ch. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Paddock vs. Brown and others.
    A “ call” from a presbyterian congregation to a minister, drawn in the words prescribed by the forms and discipline of that church, (Const, of Presb. Church, p. 438, Art. 6, ed. of 1842,) and signed by three elders and a trustee, does not bind them to pay the minister’s salary, but is to be regarded as the act of the congregation.
    
      Semble, that the “ call” relates exclusively to the spiritual concerns of the congregation. Per Nelson, Ch. J.
    In order to prove, the incorporation of a religious society, the original certificate filed under the statute must be produced; the record of the certificate is not primary evidence. Per Nelson, Ch. J.
    Assumpsit, tried at the Otsego circuit in April, 1843, before Willard, 0. Judge. The defendants were Adam Brown, Timothy Sabin and Jacob Young, and the declaration contained the common counts for “work, labor and services, care and diligence, as a minister of the gospel,” done, performed and bestowed by the plaintiff, Joseph W. Paddock, at the special instance and request of the defendants. Plea, the general issue. The case was this: In October, 1839, a regular meeting of the congregation known as The Second Presbyterian Church in Milford, now Oneonta, was held, at which the plaintiff presided as moderator, and Timothy Sabin acted as clerk. The meeting resolved to tender the plaintiff “ a call” to become the pastor of that church, and he was deputed to draw up the call in due form, which he afterwards did. It was in the following words:
    “ The congregation of Oneonta, being, on sufficient grounds, well satisfied of the ministerial qualifications of you, Joseph W. Paddock, and having good hopes, from our past experience of your labors, that your ministrations in the gospel will be profitable to our spiritual interests, do earnestly call and desire you to undertake the pastoral office in said congregation; promising you, in the discharge of your duty, all proper support, encouragement and obedience in the Lord. And that you may be free from wordly cares and avocations, we hereby promise and oblige ourselves to pay to you the sum. of $500, in regular yearly payments, during the time of your being and continuing the regular pastor of this "church.. In testimony whereof we have respectively subscribed our names, this seventh day of January, 1840. Jacob. Young,
    Timothy Sabin, John Hackett,
    Moderator. Adam Brown.”
    The three defendants, Brown, Young and Sabin, were elders of the church at the time the call bears date, and Hackett was a trustee. The signatures to the call were proved, and the plaintiff then offered it in evidence; but the defendants objected, insisting that the call was the act of the congregation, and did not bind the defendants individually. The circuit judge overruled the objection, and the call was read in evidence. It was further proved that the plaintiff was duly installed pastor on the 7th day of January, 1840, the day the call was signed; and that he continued to officiate until the 7th of August, 1842, when he was discharged at his own request.
    The defendants offered to prove, among other things, that the congregation at Oneonta was duly incorporated under the statute, on the 13th of November, 1819; and for this purpose they offered, in evidence the record of the certificate of incorporation. The plaintiff objected, and the circuit judge excluded the evidence. In the course of the trial the defendants moved for a nonsuit on the ground that the call did not bind them individually, but purported to be and was the act of the congregation. The circuit judge held otherwise; and therefore denied the motion.
    The jury, under the direction of the judge, found a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $725,84, the amount admitted to be due by the defendants, if they were liable at alb The defendants now moved for a new trial on a case.
    
      C. P. Kirkland, for the defendants;
    
      J. A. Spencer, for the plaintiff.
   By the Court, Nelson, Ch. J.

Í am of opinion that the learned judge erred in his disposition of this case at the circuit. The written instrument or “ call” relied on to bind the defendants, does not purport on its face to bind them, büt the contrary. If any legal obligation at all is to be predicated upon it in favor of the plaintiff, which may be questionable; it is an. obligation assumed by the congregation, through its authorized agents; and nothing more. To charge the subscribers of the “ call” individually with the payment of the pastor’s salary, would be an utter perversion of the scope and object of this well known instrument. The form, character and purpose of it, as well as the authority whence it issues, will be seen by referring to the fifteenth chapter of the Form of Government &c. of the Presbyterian Church, (Const. of the Presb. Church, p. 436, ed. of 1842,) which may be resorted to, upon established principles of law, in order to arrive at the true meaning and legal effect of the “ call.” It will there be found to be an instrument issuing from the congregation, which may be signed either by the elders and deacons, by the trustees, or by a select committee, and attested by the moderator of the meeting. In the case before ,us it did so issue; was signed by three elders and one trustee, and attested by the moderator.

The plaintiff was himself a minister of the presbyterian denomination, and was of course familiar with the-prescribed mode of proceedings preparatory to and in the making out of a “call” in due form. Indeed; in this case it appears he presided at the first meeting of the congregation, and was deputed to draw up the instrument in conformity with the prescribed mode; that he drew and accepted it in pursuance of the regulations of the Form of Government, and was thereupon installed as pastor.

Under all these circumstances, it is impossible that the plaintiff or any one else should mistake the character or intended effect of the instrument, either in a legal or ecclesiastical sense. It purports on its face to be the act of the congregation, was put forth, accepted and relied upon as such, and it would have been worse than a nullity for all the sacred and pious objects for which it was created, had it not been their act. (Brockway v. Allen, 17 Wend. 40.)

The paper, judging from the established course of proceeding in the regular instalment of a pastor over a congregation, appears to be an instrument of a purely ecclesiastical character, having relation to the spiritual concerns of the church, rather than to its temporal affairs. True, it contains a recognition of the annual stipend agreed upon, and an assumption on the part of the congregation to contribute the same, in order, as is said, that the pastor “may be free from worldly cares and avocations.” But the trustees are the body legally constituted under the statute to take charge of all the temporalities of the congregation, and to manage and control the same. (3 R. iS. 207, § 3, 4, 2d ed.) They are the body; therefore, that should attend to the raising and’ payment of the minister’s salary.

The defendants proposed, in the course of the trial, to prove the incorporation of the congregation, by the production of the record from the clerk’s office, which was rejected. Whether rejected as incompetent proof df the fact, or as impertinent and immaterial, is not stated: The ground of the. objection -should have been specified. If rejected on the ground that the evidence was incompetent to prove the certificate filed under the statute, the decision was doubtless correct. The original should have been produced, or accounted for, according to the case of Jackson v. Leggett, (7 Wend. 377.)

New trial granted.