Court Opinion

ID: 9745878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:39:06.750789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:05.625243
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE MURPHY, specially concurring: I concur that this court is precluded from exercising subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiff’s claims. I write separately to suggest that when accusers are not members of the religious body to which they complain, the first amendment principles described by the majority should apply equally to their testimony. In the cases cited by the majority, the first amendment extends to a member of a religious body who reports a clergyman’s misconduct to church officials, who use the information to discipline the minister. In Hiles v. Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, 437 Mass. 505, 773 N.E.2d 929 (2002), for example, the court held that the plaintiffs defamation claim “touches the core of the church-minister relationship” because the church “has a singular interest in protecting its faithful from clergy who will take advantage of them.” Hiles, 437 Mass, at 513, 773 N.E.2d at 936. Pivotal to this analysis was the fact that the statement was made by a church member to the church itself. Hiles, 437 Mass, at 513 n.12, 773 N.E.2d at 937 n.12. However, the parishioner’s accession to the canons of the Episcopal Church was an independent basis for the court’s opinion in Hiles. The first basis for the court’s ruling regarding subject matter jurisdiction was that “[ojnce a court is called on to probe into a religious organization’s discipline of its clergy, the First Amendment is implicated. [Citations.] When that occurs, principles of church autonomy deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction.” Hiles, 437 Mass, at 511, 773 N.E.2d at 935. See also Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for the United States of America & Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 724-25, 49 L. Ed. 2d 151, 171, 96 S. Ct. 2372, 2387-88 (1976); People v. Campobello, 348 Ill. App. 3d 619, 628 (2004). None of the authority cited by the majority require that an accuser who makes statements in the context of a religious disciplinary proceeding be a member of the religious body to which the clergyman in question belongs. Therefore, even if the accuser is not a member of the religious body to which he complains, his statements may still require the court to inquire into the religious body’s discipline of its clergy. Such an inquiry implicates the free exercise clause of the first amendment. See Hiles, 437 Mass, at 511, 773 N.E.2d at 935.