Opinion ID: 1779062
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: Ministerial Exception to Title VII

Text: ś 70. Much of the authority cited to us by the parties, as well as others we have reviewed, were decided under traditional First Amendment analysis, applying either the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause, or both. Nevertheless, there are still valid judicial applications of the Watson Doctrine of Church Autonomy. For instance, the Catholic Church only allows men to be priests. Such policy would not long survive a Title VII challenge in the secular world. However, Title VII recognized an unwritten ministerial exception which places this Catholic policy outside the reach of civil courts. Elvig v. Calvin Presbyterian Church, 375 F.3d 951, 955-57 (9th Cir.2004);. Bollard v. California Province of the Society of Jesus, 196 F.3d 940, 945 (9 th Cir.1999). [17] ś 71. In addition to Watson, we note that in cases addressing internal disputes over church property, courts have generally applied the Doctrine of Church Autonomy (although sometimes by another name), citing Watson and the First and Fourteenth Amendments. For instance, Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976), involved the defrocking of a diocesan bishop who controlled the monastery, and who was the principal officer of the corporation holding the property. The bishop and others sued in the Illinois Circuit Court, seeking to reverse the church's internal decision to defrock, and to split up the church and its property into three dioceses. The Illinois Supreme Court held the church's actions were procedurally and substantively defective and arbitrary. 426 U.S. at 698, 96 S.Ct. 2372. In reversing the Illinois court, the United States Supreme Court stated, It suffices to note that the reorganization of the Diocese involves a matter of internal church government, an issue at the core of ecclesiastical affairs. Id. at 721, 96 S.Ct. 2372. The Court then cited Watson for the proposition that legal tribunals must accept the decision of the highest church authorities which have decided questions of discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law. Id. at 696, 96 S.Ct. 2372. ś 72. The attempted application of Watson to secular disputes (as opposed to internal, ecclesiastical disputes) involving a church was discussed in General Council on Fin. And Admin. of the United Methodist Church v. Superior Court, 439 U.S. 1355, 99 S.Ct. 35, 58 L.Ed.2d 63 (1978), wherein Justice Rehnquist [18] stated: There are constitutional limitations on the extent to which a civil court may inquire into and determine matters of ecclesiastical cognizance and polity in adjudicating intrachurch disputes. (citation omitted). But this Court never has suggested that those constraints similarly apply outside the context of such intraorganization disputes. Thus, Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese and the other cases cited by applicant are not in point. Those cases are premised on a perceived danger that in resolving intrachurch disputes the State will become entangled in essentially religious controversies or intervene on behalf of groups espousing particular doctrinal beliefs. (citation omitted). Such considerations are not applicable to purely secular disputes between third parties and a particular defendant, albeit a religious affiliated organization, in which fraud, breach of contract and statutory violations are alleged. As the Court stated in another context, Nothing we have said is intended even remotely to imply that, under the cloak of religion, persons may, with impunity, commit frauds upon the public. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 306, 60 S.Ct. 900, 904, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940). 439 U.S. at 1372-73, 99 S.Ct. 35 (emphasis added).