In two recent cases involving internal church disputes, the Fort Worth and El Paso Courts of Appeals have had occasion to apply the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, which deprives civil courts of subject matter jurisdiction over internal church matters.
The first case, In re Texas Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, Southwestern Union Conference Corporation of Seventh-Day Adventists, Texas Conference Association of Seventh-Day Adventists, and Alice Cash (No. 02-22-00208-CV), arose from a dispute between a local Tarrant County church and the Conference over the employment and compensation of a pastor. The facts are convoluted (as the court of appeals noted), but the upshot is that the Conference wanted to get rid of the pastor over the local church’s objection. When the Conference terminated the pastor, the local church dissolved its governing board, picked a new one, and attempted to pay the pastor the balance of a fund created to make up for his lost compensation. But the Conference intervened by locking the local congregation out of both its bank account and its church house. The church sued the Conference for what amounts to conversion of its funds, which under the governing documents of the Conference belong to the local congregation. The Conference filed a plea to the jurisdiction, which the trial court eventually denied. The Conference sought a writ of mandamus.
In an opinion by Justice Wallach, the court of appeals reversed and dismissed the case for want of subject matter jurisdiction. The court applied the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, which “prohibits civil courts from delving into matters of theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government, or members’ conformity to the church’s moral standards” (citations omitted). Derived from the First Amendment, the doctrine protects “internal affairs of church governance and autonomy” from interference from civil authorities and empowers religious institutions to promulgate, interpret, and apply “its own ecclesiastical rules, customs, and laws” (citations omitted). Exceptions to the doctrine are few and narrowly drawn, limited to situations in which a court “can apply neutral principles of law that will not require inquiry into religious doctrine, interfere with believers’ free-exercise rights, or meddle in church government.” The neutral principles exception has been limited primarily to disputes over ownership of church property, but only if it does not involve the court in imposing civil liability on churches for complying with its own rules or determining a church’s moral or disciplinary standards. The test is whether the substance of the plaintiff’s claims is “inextricably intertwined with matters of doctrine or church governance.”
In this case, the court held, the local congregation’s claims, which were based entirely on the “Church Manual” governing local churches and their relationship to the hierarchy of the church as a whole, were indeed inextricably intertwined with the governance of the church. Although the local congregation attempted to posture the issue as a dispute over property—the congregation’s bank account—the real dispute was over whether the Conference recognized the local congregation’s entitlement to those funds when it replaced its leadership and tried to pay the pastor. The Manual also contained a dispute resolution and appeal process (and discouraged litigation between congregants and the church), which did not appear to be followed in this case. As Justice Wallach characterized it, “[T]his is a dispute over who has the authority to make decisions on behalf of the Northwest Church now that Pastor Gresham has been terminated and the prior governing board dissolved.” As such, adjudicating the dispute would involve the court in questions of church hierarchy and internal governance. The trial court had no jurisdiction and abused its discretion when it denied the Conference’s plea to the jurisdiction.
The second case, In Re Congregation B’Nai Zion of El Paso (No. 08-21-00211-CV), arose from a defamation suit brought by a former employee against the congregation. The congregation terminated Plaintiff, its executive director, after three years’ service and sent the members of the congregation a letter explaining its action. Plaintiff alleged that the letter defamed her by suggesting that she was fired on account of financial improprieties. The congregation filed a plea to the jurisdiction that Plaintiff’s claims were barred by the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, as well as the ministerial exception, because the letter was “intertwined with matters of the Jewish faith and internal synagogue governance.” Plaintiff countered that she was merely an office manager, not a spiritual advisor, and that the neither the doctrine nor the exception applied. She also requested discovery targeted at the jurisdictional issue. The trial court issued an order continuing the congregation’s plea to the jurisdiction so that discovery on the merits could proceed. The congregation sought a writ of mandamus.
The court found that the trial court had not yet decided whether the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine or the ministerial exception applied. Consequently, the congregation’s request for mandamus relief, the purpose of which is to correct the trial court’s clear abuse of discretion, was in reality a request for an advisory opinion and thus premature. Moreover, the court ruled that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing discovery and deferring ruling on the jurisdictional issue until it could be further developed. The court noted that the pleadings contained contradictory facts, so that additional discovery was warranted. But, the court held, the trial court’s discovery order was too broad because it extended to “Plaintiff’s claim and Defendant’s defenses,” not just to facts pertinent to the plea to the jurisdiction. The court thus granted mandamus regarding the scope of the discovery order.
These decisions reinforce the high bar that a plaintiff in a church dispute must surmount in order to invoke the jurisdiction of a civil court. For anything beyond a property ownership dispute, it’s hard to imagine a tort or contract matter that would not be so implicated in church governance or ideological doctrines as to render it justiciable. Still, First Amendment cases are important in themselves because they involve founding principles, and one can’t be too careful in handling those.
