Court Opinion

ID: 9577647
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:36:46.500345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:59.037143
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The majority opinion is important for the guidance of our courts and our citizens. It confirms, and rightly so, the power of the courts to intervene in church-based disputes where property rights and civil rights of church members are threatened. I agree with virtually all of what the majority has written. However, I think that this Court should not have approved the remedy devised by the trial court as the threshold response to this delicate problem.
The trial court appointed a Commissioner in Chancery and a uniformed deputy to, in effect, take over the operation of the church meeting. That such a remedy might ultimately be required I do not dispute. However, I think that what happened here was far too intrusive as a first-level response. The trial court should have shown more restraint. The majority opinion should have made clear to the trial courts that where courts are called upon to intervene in church disputes the overriding principle in the area of remedies must be restraint.
Religious freedom is one of the reasons for the existence of the United States. Many of our ancestors overcame great hazards to reach the freedoms offered by our shores. It is only fitting and proper then that courts in America should be cautious, careful, and restrained when called upon to use the secular power of the state to resolve disputes that rage within churches. Without such caution, the brute strength of the state could inadvertently trample upon the delicate balance struck by our founding fathers between issues of church and issues of state.
The majority’s description of the powers of the Commissioner is incomplete. He certainly was empowered to “run and oversee” the church meeting, to count the vote, and to report to the court. But his powers went further than that. He was directed by the trial court to limit voting to church members over the age of eighteen. He was empowered to decide who qualified as a church member and who did not. He was authorized to select a presiding officer or to preside himself. He was directed by the trial court to limit all speaking to five minutes per person. He was permitted to select *194tellers to assist in vote counting. He was granted sole discretion, in the event the business was not concluded in one meeting, to call another meeting at a time and place he deemed appropriate.
In short, as a first response to this dispute, the trial court ordered that the church meeting be taken over and run by the state. This remedy was much more than necessary. The majority concedes that in cases of this kind the courts “must exercise great restraint.” Yet, the majority approved this intrusive remedy as a threshold response to this dispute. The majority says this remedy was justified for at least three reasons: First, because the minister and his adherents had established a track record of truculent defiance; second, because the disputing factions could not agree upon an impartial person to run the meeting; and third, because the court might have started itself along an endless path of appointing observers, invalidating improper meeting results, then appointing another observer. These explanations are insufficient to me to justify the level of intrusion that was ordered by the trial court.
In almost every church case that makes its way into the courts, the parties will be sharply divided and in hot debate. At least one side to the dispute is likely to believe that separation of church and state means that the courts have no role to play in church affairs. Such a belief may manifest itself in a defiant attitude. The courts, of course, will not condone such an attitude, however, its existence does not automatically mean that the remedy fashioned by the court should be any less restrained than it would have been had all the litigants been cheerful and pleasant. I am more concerned with striking the proper balance between church and state than showing a defiant minister the full scope of a trial court’s power; this is surely true at the threshold.
I think the appropriate remedy would have been to send in the Commissioner as the “eyes and ears” of the court but otherwise to allow the church to operate as it customarily operated. This means that if the minister normally presides at a church meeting let him preside — under the watchful eye of the court. The selection of an impartial person to run the church meeting would not be necessary under my threshold approach to this problem. The Commissioner would have a passive role to observe and report back to the court. If the report is that the events leading up to the meeting, e.g., notice, and the conduct of the meeting, e.g., speaking and voting, were fair, then the court could step aside. If the report is otherwise, the court could fashion a more intrusive remedy.
*195By my approach, there is no risk that the court would embroil itself in a never ending series of appointments of passive observers. If given the chance to conduct a fair meeting under the eyes and ears of the court the minister fails to do so, he would have to face escalating intrusions until a fair meeting was conducted.
My approach would pay proper respect to religious freedom and to the power of the courts to intervene in disputes of this kind. It would make the trial courts start with the least intrusive remedy and move up notch by notch to more intrusive remedies. My approach would make restraint the guiding principle in resolving church-based disputes.
Although this one dissent cannot change the majority result, I hope the trial courts will not take the majority opinion to mean that wherever there exists a serious dispute within a church, that it is proper to send a Commissioner and a deputy into the sanctuary to take charge. Such a first-level remedy gives rough treatment to so precious and delicate a right as freedom of religion.