Opinion
HHDCV166067714S
12-01-2016
Thedress Campbell v. Shiloh Baptist Church et al
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION RE COURT'S SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION
Cesar A. Noble, J.
On July 21, 2016, the parties appeared before, and presented evidence to, the court for a hearing in connection with the plaintiff's application for a temporary injunction (#100.33). Pertinent to the demanded relief is the claim of the plaintiff, Thedress Campbell, that the defendant Shiloh Baptist Church (" Church") and its pastor, the defendant Maurice Porter, allegedly removed him from the Church's membership list, prevented him from attending Church functions, and barred him from the Church premises, all without having followed the Church's bylaws, rules and manual.
The court raised, sua sponte, during the evidentiary hearing, the issue of whether it is deprived of subject matter jurisdiction to resolve the request for injunctive relief by operation of the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States and article first, § 3, of the constitution of Connecticut. " The first amendment . . . and article first, § 3 prohibit the state's involvement in the internal doctrinal matters of religious organizations." Thibodeau v. American Baptist Churches of Connecticut, 120 Conn.App. 666, 667, 994 A.2d 212, cert. denied, 298 Conn. 901, 3 A.3d 74 (2010). " The First Amendment prohibits governmental action, including court action, that would burden the free exercise of religion by encroaching on a church's ability to manage its internal affairs." Retta v. Mekonen, 338 S.W.3d 72, 76 (Tex.App. 2011). Evidence was limited by the court to this issue during the middle of the hearing. After the plaintiff rested, the defendant declined to offer any evidence. By order of the court (#105), the parties submitted memoranda of law addressing the issue of this court's subject matter jurisdiction.
On August 22, 2016, the parties appeared before the court to argue their respective positions. The court, as is more fully discussed below, finds that the limitations on its authority imposed by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States and article first, § 3, of the constitution of Connecticut do not prevent it from determining whether the alleged expulsion was the act of an authority within the Church having the power to order it. See, e.g., Brown v. Mt. Olive Baptist Church, 255 Iowa 857, 859, 124 N.W.2d 445, 446 (1963). Stated differently, although the court is without authority to determine if the Church, once having acted, did so in conformance with its religious principles, the abovementioned constitutional provisions do not deprive the court of jurisdiction to determine whether the individuals who allegedly removed the plaintiff from membership were authorized to act on behalf of the Church. As a result, the court orders further evidentiary hearing on this limited issue.
FACTS
The plaintiff alleges in his complaint, and established by testimony at the July 21, 2016 hearing, that he was a longtime member of the Church who had previously served as a trustee and deacon. In 2014, the plaintiff questioned expenses by Pastor Porter, but the Board of Trustees and Board of Deacons essentially refused to investigate his concerns. Thereafter, the plaintiff contacted the Connecticut Department of Public Health regarding the presence of asbestos in the Church building which led to hostility between him, Pastor Porter and the Board of Deacons. His relationship with Pastor Porter and the Board of Deacons grew increasingly acrimonious such that the plaintiff was forced to resign as a deacon.
After continued hostility, the plaintiff received a letter dated January 26, 2016, from Pastor Porter and Bradley Jones, Chairman of the Deacons, in which he was informed that the pastor and deacons of the Church were considering his dismissal from membership and that a meeting was scheduled for February 1, 2016, in order for him to be heard on the issue. The letter indicated that if the plaintiff chose not to attend the hearing, the pastor and deacons would make its determination regarding his dismissal without his input. The plaintiff declined to attend the meeting. Thereafter, a letter dated February 2, 2016, was issued by Pastor Porter and Deacon Jones informing the plaintiff that the " leadership" of the Church had exercised its rights under the Amended and Restated Constitution and Bylaws (Constitution and Bylaws) of the Church to dismiss him from membership, as a result of his disregard for the Church's authority and " for creating contention and strife." The letter purported to act under Section 7.3 of the Constitution and Bylaws. The February 2, 2016 letter informed the plaintiff that he was not allowed on the premises of the Church, he was not allowed to attend any function or activity held or hosted by the Church, and that any violations would be reported to the appropriate law enforcement authorities. Pursuant to Section 7.3 of the Constitution and Bylaws, the plaintiff was invited back to attend a regularly scheduled Church meeting for the limited purpose of addressing the Church body regarding this " final decision." The plaintiff declined to do so, and this action followed.
The plaintiff asserted at the hearing and in his briefs that the expulsion was invalid because the Constitution and Bylaws permit a member to be dismissed from membership only upon recommendation by the Advisory Board to the membership and presumably thereafter by action of the membership. It is the plaintiff's position that because there was no action by either the Advisory Board or the membership the February 2, 2016 letter from Pastor Porter and Deacon Jones is ultra vires and a nullity as to his expulsion. The Church argues that the court is without jurisdiction because of the " ecclesiastical abstention" doctrine, which prohibits civil courts from resolving disputes involving religious law and policy. See, e.g., Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for United States of America & Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976). The court agrees with plaintiff that it has the authority to determine whether his purported expulsion was done by an act of the authority within the Church having the power to order it, but orders further hearing on this limited issue. More facts will be set forth as necessary.
ANALYSIS
Although various federal and state courts have squarely addressed the narrow issue before the court, the court is unaware of any controlling authority from our own appellate courts that resolves this narrow jurisdictional question. An exposition of the ambit of the authority of secular courts in ecclesiastical disputes must start with Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 20 L.Ed. 666 (1871). " The principles limiting the role of civil courts in the resolution of religious controversies that incidentally affect civil rights were initially fashioned in Watson v. Jones . . . a diversity case decided before the First Amendment had been rendered applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment." Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for United States of America & Canada v. Milivojevich, supra, 426 U.S. 710, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 49 L.Ed.2d 151. Watson involved a schism within a local Presbyterian church, caused by factions differing on the issue of slavery. The highest judicatory of the superior church ruled that the anti-slavery majority faction represented the church and was entitled to the use of the church's property including the house of worship. See Watson v. Jones, supra, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 692, 20 L.Ed. 666. The pro-slavery minority members of the church sought federal court protection arguing the deed to the church property contained an implied trust for its use by only those who held to the original doctrines to which the property had been devoted.
The Supreme Court declined to find that such a trust existed in the case before it and observed that ecclesiastical property disputes may be separated in three classifications. Id., 722. These are: (1) Where the use of the property is dictated by an explicit trust set forth by the terms of the deed or will of the donor; (2) Where the property is held by an independent religious organization owing no obligation to any higher governing church authorities; and (3) Where the ecclesiastical body holding the property is a subordinate member of some " general church organization in which there are superior ecclesiastical tribunals with a general and ultimate power of control." Id. In the first class of cases, the secular courts would enforce the trust. Id., 723. In the second class, " where there is a schism which leads to a separation into distinct and conflicting bodies, the rights of such bodies to the use of the property must be determined by the ordinary principles which govern voluntary associations." Id., 725. Thus, if the church governance called for majority rule or a delegation of power to officers in the congregation, the court would enforce the applicable mode of government. Id. The court was careful to point out that such a methodology involved no consideration of ecclesiastical principles. " This ruling admits of no inquiry into the existing religious opinions of those who comprise the legal or regular organization; for, if such was permitted, a very small minority, without any officers of the church among them, might be found to be the only faithful supporters of the religious dogmas of the founders of the church. There being no such trust imposed upon the property when purchased or given, the court will not imply one for the purpose of expelling from its use those who by regular succession and order constitute the church, because they may have changed in some respect their views of religious truth." Id. The threshold inquiry is necessarily an inquiry into what polity has been adopted by the ecclesiastical body such that a determination may be made as to whether that body has acted.
The Court found that the case before it involved the third class of cases involving a hierarchical organization. Id., 726. In such cases, the approved approach required deference to the highest church judicatory to which the matter had been presented. Id., 727. " [W]henever the questions of discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law have been decided by the highest of these church judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final, and as binding on them, in their application to the case before them." Id. This too, it seems, involves a query by the court into the identity of the organs of the church empowered to resolve such a dispute on behalf of the church.
The Court then expressed the principles of religious freedom from secular interference which endure through this date. " In this country the full and free right to entertain any religious belief, to practice any religious principle, and to teach any religious doctrine which does not violate the laws of morality and property, and which does not infringe personal rights, is conceded to all. The law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect. The right to organize voluntary religious associations to assist in the expression and dissemination of any religious doctrine, and to create tribunals for the decision of controverted questions of faith within the association, and for the ecclesiastical government of all the individual members, congregations, and officers within the general association, is unquestioned." Id., 728-29.
It then established a rule of deference to the decisions of the highest judicatory in an hierarchical religious body. " All who unite themselves to such a body do so with an implied consent to this government, and are bound to submit to it. But it would be a vain consent and would lead to the total subversion of such religious bodies, if any one aggrieved by one of their decisions could appeal to the secular courts and have them reversed. It is of the essence of these religious unions, and of their right to establish tribunals for the decision of questions arising among themselves, that those decisions should be binding in all cases of ecclesiastical cognizance, subject only to such appeals as the organism itself provides for." Id., 728-29.
Support for the proposition that the rule of deference enunciated in Watson is conditioned upon a determination of whether an action, undertaken purportedly on behalf of a religious body, is taken by an ecclesiastical organ authorized to act on behalf of the corporate body is found in a decision of the Supreme Court which followed shortly after the release of Watson . In Bouldin v. Alexander, 82 U.S. (15 Wall.) 131, 132, 21 L.Ed. 69 (1872), the Supreme Court resolved a dispute between two competing factions of a church of a congregational polity. After the minority faction " turned out" or expelled members of the majority and physically obtained possession of the church property the majority faction brought suit seeking possession of church real property and an accounting of monies received and expended by a minority faction. Although the Supreme Court articulated the question before it as " where was the legal ownership of the property"; id., 137; its resolution of this issue necessarily required it to examine which group properly constituted the church. " This is not a question of membership of the church, nor of the rights of members as such. It may be conceded that we have no power to revise or question ordinary acts of church discipline, or of excision from membership. We have only to do with rights of property . . . [W]e cannot decide who ought to be members of the church, nor whether the excommunicated have been regularly or irregularly cut off. We must take the fact of excommunication as conclusive proof that the persons exscinded are not members. But we may inquire whether the resolution of expulsion was the act of the church, or of persons who were not the church and who consequently had no right to excommunicate others ." (Citation omitted; emphasis added.) Id., 139-40. In so doing, it was required to consider the church's rules. Noting that in a congregational church principles of majority rule adhere, the court held that the expulsion of a large number of the church members by the minority faction was a nullity as was the removal of church trustees by that same minority " without warning and acting without charges, without citation or trial, and indirect contravention of the church rules." Id., 140. Although this decision as decided without consideration of first amendment implications, it is nevertheless instructive as to the level of scrutiny of an ecclesiastical body's system of governance permitted to a secular court.
In Presbyterian Church in the United States v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 446, 89 S.Ct. 601, 21 L.Ed.2d 658 (1969), the Supreme Court remanded to the Georgia Supreme Court a property dispute over control of the church property between two competing factions of a local Presbyterian Church. Justice Brennan, writing for the majority, set out the significant limitations that the first amendment imposes on the secular courts. " Thus, the First Amendment severely circumscribes the role that civil courts may play in resolving church property disputes. It is obvious, however, that not every civil court decision as to property claimed by a religious organization jeopardizes values protected by the First Amendment. Civil courts do not inhibit free exercise of religion merely by opening their doors to disputes involving church property. And there are neutral principles of law, developed for use in all property disputes, which can be applied without 'establishing' churches to which property is awarded. But First Amendment values are plainly jeopardized when church property litigation is made to turn on the resolution by civil courts of controversies over religious doctrine and practice. If civil courts undertake to resolve such controversies in order to adjudicate the property dispute, the hazards are ever present of inhibiting the free development of religious doctrine and of implicating secular interests in matters of purely ecclesiastical concern. Because of these hazards, the First Amendment enjoins the employment of organs of government for essentially religious purposes . . . [T]he Amendment therefore commands civil courts to decide church property disputes without resolving underlying controversies over religious doctrine." (Citation omitted; emphasis added.) Id., 449. Presbyterian Church thus articulated that, although secular courts are deprived by the first amendment of authority to decide property disputes which require consideration or analysis of theology, they retain the authority to decide such disputes where they can do so without resort to resolving religious doctrine.
In Maryland & Virginia Eldership of the Churches of God v. Church of God at Sharpsburg, Inc., 396 U.S. 367, 90 S.Ct. 499, 24 L.Ed.2d 582 (1970), the Supreme Court had another opportunity to address a case involving yet another schism in a church congregation devolving into a dispute over control of church property. In a per curiam decision, the Supreme Court held that because the decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals relied on state statutory property law, language in deeds, the terms of the charters of the religious corporations and the constitution of a governing body, the Court's resolution of the dispute involved no inquiry into religious doctrine and thus did not run afoul of first amendment. Id., 367-68. Justice Brennan's concurrence illuminated " that a State may adopt any one of various approaches for settling church property disputes so long as it involves no consideration of the doctrinal matters, whether the ritual in liturgy of worship or the tenants of faith." Id., 368 (Brennan, J., concurring). Justice Brennan acknowledged the approach permitted in Watson v. Jones, supra, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, whereby a civil court would enforce a property decision made by a church of congregational polity by a majority of its members or by such other " local organism as it may have instituted for the purpose of ecclesiastical government . . . and within a church of hierarchal polity by the highest authority that has ruled on the dispute at issue, unless express terms in the instrument by which the property is held condition the property's use or control in a specified manner." (Citation omitted; footnotes omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 368-69 (Brennan, J., concurring). Justice Brennan cautioned, however, that the Watson approach " is consonant with the prohibitions of the First Amendment only if the appropriate church governing body can be determined without the resolution of doctrinal questions and without extensive inquiry into religious policy ." (Emphasis added.) Id., 370 (Brennan, J., concurring).
Chronologically, the next Supreme Court decision pertinent to the present case, and one upon which the Church places great reliance on, is Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for the United States of America & Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976). The Milivojevich decision involved a determination by the Illinois Supreme Court that the defrockment of a bishop of the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church was procedurally and substantively defective under the internal regulations of the church and, therefore, arbitrary and invalid. The United States Supreme Court held that such a review, and the judgment predicated thereon, was impermissible under the first amendment. Central to the Milivojevich decision is the predicate that the action taken on behalf of the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church was conducted by the Holy Synod and the Holy Assembly which had " the exclusive power to remove, suspend, defrock or appoint" the respondent bishop. Id., 699. The Supreme Court held that the Illinois Supreme Court's decision was inconsistent with the first amendment because it involved an " impermissible rejection of the decisions of the highest ecclesiastical tribunals of this hierarchal church upon the issues in dispute, and impermissibly substitutes its own inquiry into church polity and resolutions based thereon of those disputes." (Emphasis added.) Id., 708.
Although the issue tangentially involved control over church property, Milivojevich was essentially " a religious dispute, the resolution of which under our cases is for ecclesiastical and not civil tribunals." Id., 709. Because " the sole power to appoint and remove Bishops of the Church resides in its highest ranking organs, the Holy Assembly and the Holy Synod; " Id., 715; " the decisions to suspend and defrock [the] respondent [bishop] were made by the religious bodies in whose sole discretion the authority to make those ecclesiastical decisions was vested . . ." Id., 717-18. The Supreme Court concluded that civil courts are without authority under the first amendment to judicially abrogate an ecclesiastical determination reached by the final church judicatory in which authority to make the decision resides. Id., 720. The instruction provided by the United States Supreme Court as to the first amendment imposed restriction on civil court authority addressing religious disputes is thus that the court must defer to decisions reached by the " final church judicatory in which authority to make the decision resides."
Three years after Milivojevich, the United States Supreme Court emphasized that states are not obliged by the first amendment to follow a particular method--whether based on church polity or neutral principles--of resolving church property disputes. Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 602, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 61 L.Ed.2d 775 (1979). Once more, as with many church property disputes submitted to civil courts, the matter in Jones involved a schism within a church that led to a dispute over control of church property. At a local church meeting, members of the church voted to separate from a superior generally hierarchical church. The trial court purported to apply Georgia's " neutral principals of law" approach to this dispute in granting judgment for those members of a local church who voted to separate from a superior church within the same hierarchical church organization. Id., 597-99. The sole question presented to the Supreme Court was which faction of the congregation was entitled to possess and enjoy the church property. Id., 602.
The Supreme Court stated " there can be little doubt about the general authority of civil courts to resolve this question. The State has an 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. The Supreme Court noted that " the First Amendment prohibits civil courts from resolving church property disputes on the basis of religious doctrine and practice." Id. The Court expressly authorized the " neutral principles of law" approach as consistent with first amendment analysis. Id., 602-03. The Court noted that the neutral principle of law approach is not wholly free of difficulty because it requires, at least as the doctrine had developed in Georgia, a civil court " to examine certain religious documents, such as church constitution[s] . . ." Id., 604. Nonetheless, the Court cautioned that " [i]n undertaking such an examination, a civil court must take special care to scrutinize the document in purely secular terms, and not to rely on religious precepts in determining whether the document indicates that the parties have intended to create a trust. In addition, there may be cases where the deed, the corporate charter, or the constitution of the general church incorporates religious concepts in the provisions relating to the ownership of property. If in such a case the interpretation of the instruments of ownership 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." (Emphasis added.) Id. It is noteworthy that the Court expressly rejected a doctrine of " compulsory deference to religious authority in resolving church property disputes, even where no issue of doctrinal controversy is involved." Id., 605. The case was remanded to the state court for an articulation of what the state's neutral principles standard was for the determination of what body constituted the true representative of the local church. Id., 609. The court reiterated that states may adopt any method of so doing in their resolution of religious property disputes, as " long as the use of that method does not impair free-exercise rights or entangle the civil courts in matters of religious controversy." (Footnote omitted.) Id., 608.
Subsequently, the Connecticut Supreme Court adopted the neutral principles of law approach as the appropriate methodology for resolving religious property disputes. Its decision in Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Connecticut v. Gauss, 302 Conn. 408, 28 A.3d 302 (2011), provides that Connecticut courts are to apply the neutral principles of law approach articulated by Jones, rather than the Watson approach, which applies an analysis dependent on the nature of the church polity, that is, whether the church is congregational or hierarchical in nature. Id., 430. This approach is deemed preferable because secular rules of law are applied, requiring no analysis of doctrinal principles. Id., 429.
Although the Connecticut Supreme Court has articulated a preference for the application of the neutral principles approach in property disputes, it has not had occasion to articulate whether such an approach is to be followed in the resolution of other types of internal church conflicts. This court believes that it would. Just as it is evident that the state has " an obvious and legitimate interest in the peaceful resolution of property disputes"; Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. 602, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 61 L.Ed. 775; it too has a legitimate interest in providing for the orderly resolution of disputes within voluntary associations including those related to membership. The guidance provided by Watson, Milivojevich, Jones, and Gauss--in the context of property disputes--is that a secular approach relying exclusively on objective, well established concepts of trust and property law may be employed by a civil court to resolve intra-ecclesiastical disputes. See, e.g., Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Connecticut v. Gauss, supra, 302 Conn. 429; cf. Thibodeau v. American Baptist Churches of Connecticut, 120 Conn.App. 666, 674, 677, 994 A.2d 212 (courts may resolve contractual disputes involving churches, assuming such disputes do not implicate or are not informed by religious doctrine or practice), cert. denied, 298 Conn. 901, 3 A.3d 74 (2010). This approach permits a court to rely on religious documents as well as idiosyncratic state statutes and common-law principles. Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Connecticut v. Gauss, supra, 429. The guiding principle is of course that a court may not enmesh itself in principles of doctrine and faith. This principle affords a civil court the jurisdiction to determine whether a purported act of expulsion of a member of a church is in fact the act of the church, performed through the exercise of the ecclesiastical body's grant of authority. Where there is no requirement for the court to apply principles of doctrine, faith or belief, the court's exercise of jurisdiction implicates only civil, not ecclesiastical, rights.
A split of authority indeed exists on the issue of whether a civil court is empowered to review a religious institution's constitution and bylaws in order to determine whether the expulsion of a member was in conformance with the church's own rules. Thus, in Retta v. Mekonen, 338 S.W.3d 72 (Tex.App. 2011), the court held that " [t]he question of who may be admitted and who may be excluded or removed from a house of worship is a religious question . . . Whether appellants had authority under the church's policies to exclude or remove worshippers is a question of internal church governance. Accordingly, the neutral-principles approach would not permit the trial court to grant a temporary injunction" enjoining the board of trustees of a church from prohibiting former members from attending church services. Id., 77. See also Askew v. Trustees of General Assembly of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, Inc., 684 F.3d 413, 420 (3rd Cir. 2012) (expulsion of church member by bishop on application of standard of necessity " for the good of the church" is insulated from civil court review as touching on doctrinally sensitive area), cert. denied, 133 S.Ct. 947, 184 L.Ed.2d 728 (2013); Fowler v. Bailey, 1992 OK 160, 844 P.2d 141, 145 (Okla. 1992) (church membership is within ambit of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, not that of civil courts, and therefore legal principles governing incorporated voluntary associations will not be applied to church discipline proceedings expelling members).
Conversely, other courts have held that a trial court has jurisdiction to inquire into the regularity of the expulsion of a member. See, e.g., Abyssinia Missionary Baptist Church v. Nixon, 340 So.2d 746, 748 (Al. 1976) (court has limited authority to review actions of churches in expelling members which includes the circumstance in which church member challenges whether her " expulsion was the act of the authority within the church having the power to order it"); Kennedy v. Gray, 248 Kan. 486, 494-95, 807 P.2d 670 (1991) (applying laws of voluntary, unincorporated associations to determination of whether a non-hierarchal congregational church followed its procedures for expulsion of a member). " Once the court is presented with sufficient evidence regarding the regularity of the meeting, it will then generally refuse to inquire further as to the fruits of the meeting." Abyssinia Missionary Baptist Church v. Nixon, supra, 340 So.2d 748. " [O]rdinarily the courts have no jurisdiction over, and no concern with, purely ecclesiastical questions and controversies, including membership in a church organization . . . but a civil court has jurisdiction to determine whether an alleged expulsion was the act of an authority within such body having power to order it." Brown v. Mount Olive Baptist Church, 255 Iowa 857, 859-60, 124 N.W.2d 445 (1963).
Simply put, the court finds that the limited issue presented here is who speaks for the Church. Clearly, once that voice has spoken, it is of no concern to the court what sentiment is expressed on the issue of the plaintiff's appropriateness for membership. The dispositive question the court answers is whether Pastor Porter and Deacon Jones, the latter speaking on behalf of the deacons of the Church, are cloaked with the authority to expel members. The issue is not whether their decision to expel the plaintiff is an appropriate spiritual act, but whether it is a valid expression of the corporate body. Where this question can be answered under neutral principles of law without consideration of a substantive issue of religious faith it is an inquiry free from first amendment implications.
Thus, this decision is more like that confronted by the District Court in Vann v. Guildfield Missionary Baptist Church, 452 F.Supp.2d 651 (W.D.Va. 2006), than that presented to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Askew v. Trustees of General Assembly of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, Inc., supra, 684 F.3d 413. In Vann, the District Court rejected the argument that the first amendment prohibited it from reviewing the decision of actions of a chairman of the deacons of a Baptist church to terminate a minister. 452 F.Supp.2d 656. Noting that the first amendment jurisprudence insulated the highest judicatory of a hierarchal church, or the decision of the majority of a congregational church, such a consideration " presupposes that the religious organization itself has acted before immunizing the decision from judicial review." Id., 655. " [T]he decisions of religious tribunals would be equally meaningless if civil courts had to completely defer to the claims of any person who purported to speak on behalf of a religious organization. Civil courts must be able to conduct a limited inquiry to determine if a religious body has actually spoken. Otherwise, religious organizations would be powerless to legally enforce their decisions when a church member disagreed, happened to be in a position to circumvent the decision, and claim that he or she was a true representative of the church. Such instances might occur when a local congregation of a hierarchal church refused to abide by the decisions of the church's higher tribunals or when a smaller faction of a church joined with the church's deacons and trustees to fire a minister against the majority's will." Id., 656.
This, then, is the narrow query which the court answers. It is without question that an examination of the reasons for an expulsion is prohibited by the first amendment. An inquiry into whether conduct on the part of the plaintiff conformed to the standards of the church is so intertwined with religious principles that this court cannot properly make such a determination without interfering with a legitimate claim to the free exercise of religion. The court, however, can inquire into whether the letter of expulsion by Pastor Porter and Deacon Jones was a valid expression of the ecclesiastical body vested with authority to do so. Just as a corporation can act only through its agents; see, e.g., Maharishi School of Vedic Sciences, Inc. (Connecticut) v. Connecticut Constitution Associates Ltd. Partnership, 260 Conn. 598, 606, 799 A.2d 1027 (2002); a church may act only through the official or organ vested with authority to act for a prescribed purpose.
In the present case, neutral principles of law are available to resolve this issue. The Church, having formed its existence as a nonstock corporation, may have its affairs reviewed by a civil court, insofar as doctrinal principles of faith are not implicated, and this court finds that none are so implicated, through reference to the statutory provisions for the conduct of nonstock corporations. See General Statutes § 33-1000 et seq. Thus, our statutes prescribe that " [m]emberships shall be governed by such rules of admissions, retention, withdrawal and expulsion as the bylaws shall prescribe . . ." General Statutes § 33-1056(a). The term " bylaws" refers to " the code or codes of rules adopted for the regulation or management of the affairs of the corporation irrespective of the name or names by which such rules are designated." General Statutes § 33-1002(4).
The Constitution and Bylaws, as adopted on October 25, 2013, provide that the Church shall be governed by officials who shall be elected by its members. The membership retained the right of exclusive self-government in all phases of the spiritual and temporal life of the Church pursuant to Article VI, section D. Notably, Article VII, section 7.3, entitled " Dismissal of Members, " provides in relevant part that: " [A] Member may be dismissed from the Church 'for cause, ' providing such cause is first heard and the Member given an opportunity to respond. If the Pastor and Deacons decide after a hearing that a Member should be dismissed for cause, they shall so recommend to the Advisory Board. The Member shall have the right to address the congregation with regard to their issue." In turn, Article XII, Section 12.1, provides in relevant part that " [t]he advisory board shall meet the Monday before the quarterly church meetings to review, discuss and recommend items to come before the congregation for approval ." (Emphasis added.)
None of these provisions, other than determination of what constitutes " cause, " involve the application of religious doctrine or faith. The court further finds that the Church's Constitution and Bylaws, although not a model of clarity on this point, reserve the authority for expulsion of members to the membership at congregation after recommendation from the Advisory Board. Were this not so, the Section 7.3 requirement that the pastor and deacons " recommend" expulsion to the Advisory Board, who in turn is authorized only to " recommend items to come before the congregation for approval, " would be meaningless. There has been no evidence that the February 2, 2016 letter expelling the plaintiff was an expression of the Church pursuant to a vote of its congregation.
It is again important to stress what the court is not deciding. As represented by counsel for the plaintiff, this is not a situation where the court seeks to adjudicate matters involving principles of doctrinal matters such as ritual, the liturgy of worship or the tenets of faith. Nor is the court called upon to determine if ecclesiastical " cause" did, in fact, exist to justify removing the plaintiff from membership. Rather, the court, at this juncture, is simply required to decide the narrow question of whether the proper individuals or organs of the Church effected the decision to dismiss the plaintiff from membership, as required by the Church's Constitution and Bylaws. That determination does not require the court to intrude into matters of ecclesiastical cognizance.
CONCLUSION
The court finds that the Constitution and Bylaws of the Church vests the authority for the expulsion or dismissal of members in the membership or congregation of the Church. The court further finds that the court is not deprived by the first amendment of jurisdiction to resolve whether the plaintiff was in fact expelled from the Church because this decision is not so intertwined with religious principles that it can make this determination without interfering with a legitimate claim to the free exercise of religion. Such an issue may be resolved in the present case by the application of neutral principles of law, here those of the secular laws of corporations. The evidence presented to the court did not address whether the voice of the Church was given expression by vote of its membership. However, the Church's opportunity to offer evidence in this specific regard was limited and therefore the court orders that the hearing be continued for the limited purpose of determining whether the Church had actually spoken, or whether the February 2, 2016 letter was an ultra vires act of Pastor Porter and Deacon Jones.
A status conference is ordered to take place on December 12, 2016, for purposes of scheduling and coordinating such a hearing.