McKnight v. Old Ship of Zion Missionary Baptist Church

Merland McKnight aka M. Robert McKnight v. Old Ship of Zion Missionary Baptist Church et al

No. HHDCV156061558S

Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of Hartford, Hartford

July 28, 2016

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

Nina F. Elgo, J.

Before this court is a motion to dismiss filed by the defendant Progressive Community Baptist Church (Progressive), who is being sued by the plaintiff, Merland McKnight aka M. Robert McKnight (McKnight). The plaintiff was previously employed as a minister with Old Ship of Zion Missionary Baptist Church which had dissolved and was reincorporated as Progressive. Pursuant to General Statutes § 31-72 and § § 52-552e and 52-552f, the plaintiff seeks lost wages and benefits which he claims the defendant has wrongfully withheld. The defendant's motion to dismiss is premised upon the claim that the ministerial exception under the first amendment of the United States constitution deprives this court of subject matter jurisdiction. The plaintiff argues that the ministerial exception does not apply in this case and thus the court has jurisdiction to hear this case. By order of this court, the parties submitted briefs to address pursuant to footnote four in the United States Supreme Court's decision of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. E.E.O.C., 565 U.S. 171 132 S.Ct. 694, 181 L.Ed.2d 650 (2012), whether or not the ministerial exception implicates subject matter jurisdiction and if so, whether these issues must be addressed via a motion for summary judgment, as opposed to a motion to dismiss. Having reviewed the briefs of the parties and the relevant case law, this court concludes that, irrespective of the substantive merits of the defendant's ministerial exception claim, it does have subject matter jurisdiction and denies the motion to dismiss.

" A motion to dismiss . . . properly attacks the jurisdiction of the court, essentially asserting that the plaintiff cannot as a matter of law and fact state a cause of action that should be heard by the court . . . A motion to dismiss tests, inter alia, whether, on the face of the record, the court is without jurisdiction." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Beecher v. Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut, 282 Conn. 130, 134, 918 A.2d 880 (2007).

" When a trial court decides a jurisdictional question raised by a pretrial motion to dismiss on the basis of the complaint alone, it must consider the allegations of the complaint in their most favorable light . . . In this regard, a court must take the facts to be those alleged in the complaint, including those facts necessarily implied from the allegations, construing them in a manner most favorable to the pleader." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Conboy v. State, 292 Conn. 642, 651, 974 A.2d 669 (2009).

" Pursuant to the rules of practice, a motion to dismiss is the appropriate motion for raising a lack of subject matter jurisdiction." St. George v. Gordon, 264 Conn. 538, 545, 825 A.2d 90 (2003). " Subject matter jurisdiction involves the authority of the court to adjudicate the type of controversy presented by the action before it . . . [A] court lacks discretion to consider the merits of a case over which it is without jurisdiction . . . The subject matter jurisdiction requirement may not be waived by any party, and also may be raised by a party, or by the court sua sponte, at any stage of the proceedings . . ." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Keller v. Beckenstein, 305 Conn. 523, 531-32, 46 A.3d 102 (2012). " [T]he plaintiff bears the burden of proving subject matter jurisdiction, whenever and however raised." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Fort Trumbull Conservancy, LLC v. New London, 265 Conn. 423, 430 n.12, 829 A.2d 801 (2003). " Once the question of subject matter jurisdiction has been raised, cognizance of it must be taken and the matter passed upon before [the court] can move one further step in the cause; as any movement is necessarily the exercise of jurisdiction." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Schaghticoke Tribal Nation v. Harrison, 264 Conn. 829, 839 n.6, 826 A.2d 1102 (2003). " It is well established that, in determining whether a court has subject matter jurisdiction, every presumption favoring jurisdiction should be indulged." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Novak v. Levin, 287 Conn. 71, 79, 951 A.2d 514 (2008).

The origins of the ministerial exception are derived from the first amendment of our United States constitution which provides in relevant part that " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. E.E.O.C., supra, 132 S.Ct. 702; U.S. Const., amend. I. " The establishment clause prevents the government from appointing ministers, and the free exercise clause prevents it from interfering with the freedom of religious groups to select their own." Id., 703. In recent years, litigation of child sexual abuse claims as well as employment and employment discrimination claims in the context of religious institutions has spawned a body of federal and state jurisprudence wrestling with this doctrine. See e.g. Dayner v. Archdiocese of Hartford, 301 Conn. 759, 23 A.3d 1192 (2011); Thibodeau v. American Baptist Churches of Connecticut, 120 Conn.App. 666, 994 A.2d 212, cert. denied, 298 Conn. 901, 3 A.3d 74 (2010); Rweyemamu v. Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities, 98 Conn.App. 646, 911 A.2d 319 (2006), cert. denied, 281 Conn. 911, 916 A.2d 51, cert. denied, 552 U.S. 886, 128 S.Ct. 206, 169 L.Ed.2d 144 (2007); Givens v. St. Adalbert Church, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. CV-12-6032459-S (July 25, 2013, Sheridan, J.) (56 Conn.L.Rptr. 585, ); Doe No. 2 v. Norwich Roman Catholic Diocesan Corp., Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Complex Litigation Docket, Docket No. X07-CV-12-5036425-S (July 8, 2013, Dubay, J.) (56 Conn.L.Rptr. 460, ); Weissman v. Congregation Shaare Emeth, 38 F.3d 1038 (8th Cir. 1994); Patsakis v. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 339 F.Supp.2d 689 (W.D.Pa. 2004); Temple Emanuel of Newton v. Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, 463 Mass. 472, 975 N.E.2d 433 (2012).

With respect to their arguments on the motion to dismiss, both parties rely on Dayner v. Archdiocese of Hartford, supra, 301 Conn. 759; and the United States Supreme Court decision Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, supra, 132 S.Ct. 694. In Hosanna-Tabor, the court defined the parameters for determining whether an employee of a religious institution, whose responsibilities may include ministerial aspects, may be barred from bringing an employment discrimination action against her employer. Determining that the plaintiff, a parochial school teacher and commissioned minister, was a minister for purposes of the ministerial exception and that her employment discrimination action was thus barred, the court also specifically expressed " no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits." Id., 710.

In this case, because this matter deals with the undisputed fact that he is a minister, the defendant insists that the court's holding in Hosanna-Tabor dictates that the action is barred and should be dismissed because this court is deprived of subject matter jurisdiction. In contrast, the plaintiff points to the language in Hosanna-Tabor in which the court refrained from addressing whether other types of lawsuits, like this action making a claim for wages and benefits, are similarly barred. The plaintiff further argues that the determination of whether the plaintiff's wages and benefits have been wrongfully withheld simply does not implicate the type of entanglement concerns identified by the court in employment discrimination cases such as Hosanna-Tabor .

Following its review of Hosanna-Tabor, this court determined that our U.S. Supreme Court had already spoken on the issue of subject matter jurisdiction relative to the ministerial exception. Acknowledging a split of authority in the Courts of Appeal, the court plainly stated: " [w]e conclude that the exception operates as an affirmative defense to an otherwise cognizable claim, not a jurisdictional bar. That is because the issue presented by the exception is 'whether the allegations the plaintiff makes entitle him to relief, ' not whether the court has 'power to hear [the] case.'" Id., 709 n.4. Mindful that this court must indulge every presumption in favor of jurisdiction, this court specifically ordered that the parties address whether or not footnote four of the Hosanna-Tabor decision required that this court find that it has subject matter jurisdiction. If so, the court would be unable to dismiss the action even if the defendant's analysis of the underlying issue is correct.

In its brief to the court, the defendant insists that this court is not bound by the Supreme Court's commentary and points to Dayner v. Archdiocese of Hartford, supra, 301 Conn 769, which observed that " [w]hen the ministerial exception applies, it provides the defendant with immunity from suit and deprives the court of subject matter jurisdiction." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) In its own footnote fourteen, however, the Dayner Court also acknowledged the split of authority among the federal courts and even cited to the debate among academics as to whether the issue implicates jurisdiction or must be raised as an affirmative defense. The difficulty with the latter, as noted by Dayner, is that " the very act of litigating a dispute that is subject to the ministerial exception would result in the entanglement of the civil justice system with matters of religious policy, making the...