Court Opinion

ID: 9734268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:30:34.009976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:47.481899
License: Public Domain

YETKA, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. This case does not belong in a civil court, and the state should not have prosecuted it there. Once brought, however, the state had the burden of proving all the elements of the alleged offense. Both lower courts assumed, solely on the testimony of the priest, that the parish priest was the lawful possessor of the church property with the authority to exclude Zimmer indefinitely.1 This assumption was erroneous and an abuse of discretion. The majority opinion today compounds this error by making the same assumption, choosing instead to characterize Zimmer’s offer of proof as irrelevant or foundationally inadequate. However, the majority’s analysis is both inaccurate and inconsistent with precedent of this court and the United States Supreme Court. In my view, the majority sidesteps the central issue in this case. Therefore, I would reverse and dismiss the charges against Zim-mer.
The first amendment prohibits civil courts from deciding ecclesiastical or doctrinal disputes. Piletich v. Deretich, 328 N.W.2d 696, 699 (Minn.1982) (citing Maryland & Virginia Eldership of the Churches of God v. Church of God at Sharpsburg, 396 U.S. 367, 368-70, 90 S.Ct. 499, 500-01, 24 L.Ed.2d 582 (1970)). Under this principle, civil courts must “defer to adjudications by the highest tribunal in a ‘hierarchical’ church organization on issues of religious doctrine or polity (form of government).” Id. at 6992 (citing Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 724-25, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 2387-88, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976)).
In this case, I agree with the majority that the court is not asked to resolve an issue of religious doctrine. Rather, it is asked to enforce the criminal trespass law of the State of Minnesota. As a simple trespass action, there is no first amendment prohibition on the state’s prosecution of the alleged offense. However, the majority’s analysis is incomplete: the first amendment prohibition on a civil court’s deciding religious issues extends to matters of polity as well. This ease could not fall more squarely in this category of internal church governance. In order for the state to prove two elements of the trespass action, it must establish matters that can only be characterized as ones of church polity; namely, whether the priest had the authority to bar Zimmer from the property and whether Zimmer, as a parishioner, had a good faith claim of right to be on the church premises: Not only are these issues of internal church governance, but resolution of the issues requires an authoritative interpretation of the Code of Canon Law.3 In my view, it was error for the trial court to attempt to resolve the issues *890in the first instance. Once it did, however, it unfairly denied Zimmer the right to interpose his defense by not receiving the Code into evidence. It was particularly egregious here because the record indicates that the complainant-priest lacked the approval of either the church council or his bishop to act as he did.
In circumventing the central issue presented here, the majority contends that, without expert assistance, the trial court and jury could not interpret “unfamiliar” and “ambiguous” canons to resolve the “legal” issues presented in this ease. Majority Op. at 888. Aside from the fact that the jury does not decide “legal” issues, the issue here is whether Zimmer had a good-faith belief, based on the canons, that he had a claim of right to be on the property. At trial, Zimmer was not even allowed to testify that his belief was based on the canons. Thus, even if this case did not involve issues of church polity, I would allow the defense to use the Code at trial.
In my view, once the trial court allowed the prosecution of this action to proceed, the nature of the priest/parish/parishioner relationship required the court to consider the Code of Canon Law to resolve the lawful possessor and claim-of-right issues. In adjudicating church property and membership disputes, this court and the United States Supreme Court have adopted a “neutral-principles-of-law” analysis. Piletich, 328 N.W.2d at 701; Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 604, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 3025-26, 61 L.Ed.2d 775 (1979). This analysis allows civil courts to decide issues concerning ownership and control of church property using “the language of deeds, the terms of local church charters, state statutes governing the holding of church property, provisions in the constitution of the general church * * * and general rules of property law.” Piletich, 328 N.W.2d at 700. According to the Court,
The primary advantages of the neutral-principles approach are that it is completely secular in operation, and yet flexible enough to accommodate all forms of religious organization and polity. The method relies exclusively on objective, well-established concepts of trust and property law familiar to lawyers and judges. It thereby promises to free civil courts completely from entanglement in questions of religious doctrine, polity, and practice. Furthermore, the neutral-principles analysis shares the peculiar genius of private-law systems in general — flexibility in ordering private rights and obligations to reflect the intentions of the parties.
Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. at 603, 99 S.Ct. at 3025.
As in a property or membership dispute, the court may apply a neutral-principles analysis in this case. Contrary to the majority’s assertion, a jury’s examination of the Code would not be “an invitation” to go beyond a “neutral-principles” analysis and embark on the consideration of doctrinal matters. Rather, a civil court may examine religious documents in property dispute cases as long as it
take[s] special care to scrutinize the document in purely secular terms, and not to rely on religious precepts. * * * If in such a case the interpretation of the instruments * * * would require the civil court to resolve a religious controversy, then the court must defer to the resolution of the doctrinal issue by the authoritative ecclesiastical body.
Jones, 443 U.S. at 604, 99 S.Ct. at 3026. Thus, the inquiry becomes whether it *891would be possible for a civil court to “scrutinize the document in purely secular terms” or whether the civil court should defer to the “authoritative ecclesiastical body” for resolution of the issues. Interestingly, both a majority of this court and the trial court chose to ignore either inquiry in order to dispose of the case.
In my view, the canons are relevant, along with other evidence, to a “neutral-principles” determination of whether the church has vested its priests with the authority to bar parishioners from church property. See Stevens v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Fresno, 49 Cal.App.3d 877, 883, 123 Cal.Rptr. 171 (1975) (canon law received into evidence by way of expert testimony); Jonathan v. Shea, 19 Cal.App.3d 328, 335, 96 Cal.Rptr. 673 (1971) (provisions of canon law of Russian Orthodox Church considered without expert testimony); Bishop & Diocese of Colorado v. Mote, 716 P.2d 85, 108 (Colo.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 826, 107 S.Ct. 102, 93 L.Ed.2d 52 (1986) (canons of local and general church considered by court without expert assistance in property dispute between factions of Episcopal Church); Filetto v. St. Mary of the Assumption Church of Binghamton, 61 Misc.2d 278, 305 N.Y.S.2d 403, 406 (N.Y.Sup.Ct.1969) (canon law considered in property dispute between factions in Roman Catholic Church). In addition, the canons, “scrutinized in purely secular terms,” are determinative of the parishioner’s claim of right. In this case, the jury should have been allowed to consider the canons as they related to Zimmer’s reasonable belief that he had a right to be on the property. State v. Brechon, 352 N.W.2d 745, 750 (Minn.1984) (defendant may offer evidence of reasonableness of belief in claim of right). Thus, I would have allowed Zimmer to base his claim-of-right defense on the canons.
Accordingly, I would reverse and dismiss the charges. The issues would be best resolved by an authoritative ecclesiastical body within the church hierarchy.

.The majority claims that the priest’s “qualifications to give an expert opinion on his pastoral authority” went unchallenged by the defense and that, therefore, the court did not have to make an assumption as to the priest’s "lawful possessor” status. Majority Op. at 888 n. 1. If this is true, however, it is only because the court excluded the Code of Canon Law, which directly controverted the pastor’s testimony regarding his authority. Moreover, the majority makes the wholly unremarkable assertion that Zim-mer's claim of right does not extend "to include intimidation and harassment of the congregation.” Id. No one disputes the priest’s authority to bar a parishioner who is unruly, intimidating or harassing. Thus, Zimmer’s claim of right to be on the premises in the future was disputed, and he should have been allowed to use the Code to support that claim.

. "Hierarchical" is the opposite of "congregational" in this context. The distinction refers to whether there is a central authority to which local congregations are subject. See Ellman, Driven from the Tribunal: Judicial Resolution of Internal Church Disputes, 69 Cal.L.Rev. 1378, 1384 n. 19 (1981). No one here disputes that the Roman Catholic Church is "hierarchical.”

. What the majority leaves out of its reference to the introduction of the canon law text, submitted as an offer of proof in this case, supports this view:
[The Code] touches on nearly every structure of the Roman Catholic Church in fewer than *890two thousand canons, many of which contain not statutes or laws but exhortative or theological statements more properly classified as "ajuridic." * * *
To achieve church order, the Code frequently relies on the exercise of discretion by ecclesiastical administrators in applying the law to concrete situations. The administrator is called upon to humanize and accommodate the legislator’s canonical principles, set them in their proper context, apply them equitably, and dispense from them whenever pastorally necessary.
The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary 11 (J. Coriden, T. Green & D. Heintschel eds. 1985).