Opinion ID: 894886
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Neutral-Principles Exception

Text: The Supreme Court has recognized an exception to the doctrine of church autonomy when neutral principles of law may be applied to resolve disputes over ownership of church property. These exceptions, though, have been narrowly drawn for reasons aptly expressed by the Supreme Court in Watson over a century ago, and more recently in Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 709, 96 S.Ct. 2372, and Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 603-05, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 61 L.Ed.2d 775 (1979). If civil courts undertake to resolve essentially religious controversies, `the hazards are ever present of inhibiting the free development of religious doctrine and of implicating secular interests in matters of purely ecclesiastical concern. . . .' Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 710, 96 S.Ct. 2372 (quoting Presbyterian Church in the United States v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Mem'l Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 449, 89 S.Ct. 601, 21 L.Ed.2d 658 (1969)). Milivojevich involved an intra-church dispute over control of the property and assets of the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for the United States and Canada. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 698-99, 96 S.Ct. 2372. The Supreme Court rejected the Illinois Supreme Court's purported reliance on neutral principles of law in its holding that the Diocesan reorganization and Milivojevich's removal as Bishop were invalid, and outlined the broad autonomy our Constitution affords churches in deciding matters that touch upon religious doctrine. See id. at 720-26, 96 S.Ct. 2372. Emphasizing that the First Amendment severely limits the role of civil courts in resolving religious controversies that incidentally affect civil rights, id. at 711, 96 S.Ct. 2372, the Court mandated judicial deference to the church if ownership determinations involve underlying questions of religious doctrine. Id. at 709-10, 96 S.Ct. 2372 (citing Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. at 449, 89 S.Ct. 601). Importantly, the Court noted that the principle of judicial deference is not limited to disputes over church property, but applies with equal force to church disputes over church polity and church administration. Id. at 710, 96 S.Ct. 2372. The Supreme Court again addressed an intra-church dispute over property ownership in Jones, 443 U.S. 595, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 61 L.Ed.2d 775. The Court held that states may adopt neutral principles of law as a means of adjudicating such disputes without running afoul of First Amendment concerns, so long as resolution of ownership entails no inquiry into religious doctrine. Jones, 443 U.S. at 602-05, 99 S.Ct. 3020. Called upon to decide which faction of the formerly united church congregation was entitled to possession of a specific parcel of land, the Court stated that civil courts have general authority to resolve such questions given the obvious and legitimate interest in the peaceful resolution of property disputes, and in providing a civil forum where the ownership of church property can be determined conclusively. Id. at 602, 99 S.Ct. 3020. Even so, the Court emphasized that the First Amendment severely circumscribes the role civil courts may play in resolving such disputes; if interpretation of the instruments of ownership would require the court's resolution of a religious controversy, the court must defer to ecclesiastical resolution of the doctrinal issue. Id. at 604, 99 S.Ct. 3020. Penley urges us to apply the neutral-principles approach to her professional-negligence claim, contending her claim can be resolved under neutral tort principles without resorting to or infringing upon religious doctrine. But even if we were to expand the neutral-principles approach beyond the property-ownership context as Penley requests, we disagree that free-exercise concerns would not be implicated. A church's decision to discipline members for conduct considered outside of the church's moral code is an inherently religious function with which civil courts should not generally interfere. See Watson, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 727. Courts have no jurisdiction to revise or question ordinary acts of church discipline and cannot decide who ought to be members of the church, nor whether the excommunicated have been justly or unjustly, regularly or irregularly cut off from the body of the church. Id. at 730 (quoting Shannon v. Frost, 42 Ky. (3 B. Mon.) 253, 258 (1842)). This is because the judicial eye cannot penetrate the veil of the church for the forbidden purpose of vindicating the alleged wrongs of excised members; when they became members they did so upon the condition of continuing or not as they and their churches might determine, and they thereby submit to the ecclesiastical power and cannot now invoke the supervisory power of the civil tribunals. Id. at 731 (citing Ferraria v. Vasconcelles, 23 Ill. 456, 461 (1860) (quoting Frost, 42 Ky. (3 B. Mon.) at 259)). Penley contends the primary focus of her complaint is not the letter disseminated to the congregation or CrossLand's disciplinary process, even though the damages she seeks clearly appear to have arisen from those events. Rather, Penley explains, her suit centers on Westbrook's initial disclosure to the church elders of confidential information obtained during the marital counseling sessions, which she claims constituted a breach of professional counseling standards. Because her primary focus is on Westbrook's disclosure of her confidential information to others separate and apart from the publication of the November 7 letter, Penley contends her claims do not involve matters of religious doctrine, practice, or church governance. It is true that Penley pins Westbrook's liability in this case, at least in part, on his breach of a secular duty by disclosing Penley's confidential information to the church elders in the first instance. However, this disclosure cannot be isolated from the church-disciplinary process in which it occurred, nor can Westbrook's free-exercise challenge be answered without examining what effect the imposition of damages would have on the inherently religious function of church discipline. Subjecting CrossLand's pastor to tort liability for engaging in the disciplinary process that the church requires would clearly have a chilling effect on churches' ability to discipline members, Williams, 26 S.W.3d at 59, and deprive churches of their right to construe and administer church laws, Minton, 297 S.W. at 622. See Paul v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc'y of N.Y., Inc., 819 F.2d 875, 881 (9th Cir.1987) (noting that imposing tort liability for shunning on a church would in the long run have the same effect as prohibiting the practice and would compel the Church to abandon part of its religious teachings). In sum, while the elements of Penley's professional-negligence claim can be defined by neutral principles without regard to religion, the application of those principles to impose civil tort liability on Westbrook would impinge upon CrossLand's ability to manage its internal affairs and hinder adherence to the church disciplinary process that its constitution requires. See Idleman, 75 IND. L.J. at 254 n. 96.