within the moon family over who controls the property and corporate entities of reverend moon many members of the family have asked courts of the united states to help resolve these issues unlike the other courts in which litigation is presently proceeding the court below has refused to even begin to wait in the court decided at the earliest stage in litigation that because the property dispute involves control of the corporate entity that oversees the unification church called the family federation the court must abstain the trial court found that it would be infringing on the defendant's religious liberty if were if it were to allow this case to even proceed to discovery doing so it has given blanket immunity to the actions of the defendants the court dismissed all claims against all parties so because this case involves the church the defendants have unfettered ability to remove shawn as the leader of the family federation corporation they can defraud the family federation family federation or waste its assets or unlawfully enrich themselves at it expense and no one can do anything about it that's not the law the defendant's religious liberty is not being infringed in a lawsuit about whether they abused their secular corporate powers or stole from the corporation or even the church the liberty of the parties it doesn't here how can we tell st the court is not being asked to interpret the meaning of a religious text or dogma it's not being asked to interpret religious doctrine or religious processes not being asked to  guess the decision over religious authority or court nd the action that mrs moon took to try to oust shawn were corporate actions they took votes they had forced his resignation with a letter a shawn alleges that they retaliated against him for uncovering their misdeeds a violation of the york state law these are all things that the court can decide under neutral principles of law none of them require the court to corporations that he founded designated his son sean as the sole person to control those entities and that as a matter of corporate law he has the ability to do that he is the sole essentially the member of the corporation and can transfer that to his son he didn't do that through documents he did it orally for the most part although there are there are there are proclamations that say so as well so that's point one is it not theirs are not the case that the family federation has no articles of organization or written by laws established in new york the family federation is for a nonprofit in new york and we think the court can apply standard corporate law in new york to understand that we also think the court can apply property law these are these entities all e to the appointment that he made of sean as the sole authority and and his agent over these entities they have a religious implication but they also have a secular and neutral implication that involves principles of corporate law and property law the reverend moon absent corporate articles on the like to the contrary had the sole authority to deliver those things to show on which which he did here  there's a debate in the briefs about whether the lack of corporate information is important we think that weighs in our favor your honor because it demonstrates that there also are no religious  doctrine that this court is being asked to interpret some of the questions you have might be sorted out in discovery we haven't even had the chance to get there and figure that out yet because the court has decided that it's actually infringing on someone's constitutional rights to even let discovery proceed and we don't think that's the case here we also think  that seem to suggest that the extension applies when the essential dispute is over leadership of a religious organization i think your honor the best case to look at in that context is the piri because a case out of the th circuit just a couple of years ago in two thousand and seventeen where there was a leadership dispute a very similar to this one where the organizer of that particular religious viewpoint created a corporation and then said how that corporation would be governed in the future they did it through corporate documents religious leader there the yogi there in trying his his decisions on how the organization should move forward in a corporate document that doesn't preclude other ways of doing it and that's one of the issues that would need to be sorted out is what is the effect issue of leadership which you don't seem to reckon with other than to tell us about a th circuit court case that had a corporate document so your honor i think we reckon with it because what we're saying is the decision of the reverend moon and his his statements that he is giving show on the corporate leadership of the corporations has the same effect  a federal court so your honor i think i think i would distinguish it a little bit differently and i would say that the lack of corporate documents doesn't mean it is not dispositive it means that we need to do more work in the trial court to understand six they took a vote to oust shawn as corporate directors they took they forced his resignation as the leader of a corporation and we think those types of actions the federal court on that very well you got to do is say the word corporate back in i guess i would argue your honor the that what we also can't have is all you have to do is say the word church and you're out and that's what the court below well count is both for the date of the statute on the on the whistleblower count your honor i think yeah we have we have we have real questions and with with any as with anything with statue of corporate doctrine as understood by this particular corporation and of course not to enrich themselves at the expense of the corporation or to defraud the corporation all of which we've played here so we think the duty arises in corporate law and we think we've adequately played a breach of those duties based on the wasting of assets and the self enrichment that lead to the whistleblower seems like that is leadership dispute is at the heart of each of the claims here and you said something that i think my colleagues comment by trying to focus you on this that in the absence of any corporate documents some simply an oral pronouncement by reverend moon of who the leader is is something that the courts should be involved in and there is no there's no basis for that in the law that's exactly the situation the court shouldn't be involved in if there are no bylaws articles incorporation any type of charter or governing document that would be the way the courts would traditionally look if a religious leader stows leadership on another person simply orally there's nothing that a court can is a religious leader he's not able to do something that a non religious leader could if the father of a family told the rest of the family to lead the family business that didn't happen to have corporate articles this court would have to wait and says to it to another person within the religious group give me the pure a case that's the closest case that you have that's so far from what we're talking about here that involved corporate entities the dispute was over two nonprofit court and entities the board members had ecclesiastical duties the entities were not churches themselves like that is so far from what you're alleging here which is who is the leader of the church what case you have anywhere anywhere where a court has has w r yes i go back to period i don't disagree with you that if this court sees the controversy is the only question in this case being who leads the church we have an issue with the st amendment at that point in article three branch of government every like  leader is right so your honor i think i would go back to what i mentioned earlier which is that i think these things can have and do have dual dual purposes and dual understandings here i think  that the this is a this is a family dispute as well as having religious implications and i take the family dispute st i think that's really where the focus of this case is  and i think i think this court can look at that in a non religious context and i think the question the question certain certainly should be explored more in discovery i don't think that we're asking the court to determine merely or i should say merely but only the leader of the religious entity but all of the entities under the family federation i also think that be remiss if i didn't have a chance to mention this that the courts have never said that there cannot be a fraud exception in fact the courts always look to see i think since the serbian church case if there is fraud that occurred here and i think we've i think we've adequately pled that to such that the court needs to do courts must abstain from deciding a crazy ethical to do you especially when they involve church governance in kedge off the court held that religious organizations must have the power to decide for themselves free from state interference matters of church government and serbian orthodox the court held that courts may not be immersed in church disputes over a church policy interrupted ministration according to the court the composition of church hierarchy is at the core of the crazy after all concern is seeking a declaration that he leaves the unification church and the family federation is not asking to be restated to particular board positions the complaint alleges that the indication church is a religious denomination chairman control of the church property and the same is true here do you do you disagree with the idea that if there is a claim or a question which we could resolve using neutral claim that could be decided using the actual principles that did not also require the court to resolve issues of church governance or theology the court the court can decide the issue every single claim hinges on mr moon's allegation that he is the leader of the church for example in a defamation claim he said he was the same when a church official stated that he wasn't the proper to him but that they breached their duty to him because they didn't recognize him the leader every single claim is at the district court analyzed hinges on recognizing sean moon  leader and viewing the church's current leadership as illegitimate what about the whistleblower protection aspect of the case  claim is that it's an employment claim and i mean there's certainly factual questions about who mr mann claims is employing was and to whom he made his whistle blower you know cla and forty supreme court two thousand and forty nine and the court held that that quote in court the balance of stay adman plymouth disputes involving the withholding certain important important positions with churches and other religious institutions so the whistleblower claim would be that kind of dispute if it involves individuals holding important positions within the church and in any event there's only one party who potentially could be a whistleblower to spend it in this case and that holy spirit association for the unification of world christianity usa which is a nonprofit corporation and human alleges he was removed from a position in that organization but that because he is claiming that he's entitled to that accounting and return of assets of based on his claims that mrs moon and the other defendants have sort of wrongfully wrested control of the church from him if he has missed standing to seek an accounting other than his claim that he's the leader of the church s property financial accounts and other assets as have actually done before as leader of the unification church and family federation scheinman has an interest in preservation of the organizations property and assets abuse or some type of fraud that's unrelated to leadership of the or some type of religious principle you're suggesting that that employee because it's a religious organization as you know what's a blower protection is that we're suggesting well  broadly i don't think it stands for the idea that if a an employee or other or even a leader of a church sees misconduct or fraud or wasting of corporate assets  have the need for discovery to sort out whether that is actionable under the statute i'd like to if i may wrap up on the on a point i started with which is  been using the ecclesiastical extension as both a sword and a shield i think it says a lot about what the intent of the parties within these organizations truly and so in the absence of some of the corporate formalities and documents that we discussed earlier you do have evidence of what the parties really think about how these disputes should be resolved and how they think they should be resolved is in the federal courts and the state courts of the united states all sides of this dispute have come to these courts to resolve different parts of the internal family dispute and i think the court can