OPINION OF THE COURT BY CHIEF JUSTICE MINTON.
After being removed from their seats on St. Joseph Catholic Orphan Society's Board of Trustees, certain individuals who also identify themselves as members of the St. Joseph Home Alumni Association,
St. Joseph sought dismissal of the suit, arguing the trial court was without subject-matter jurisdiction because of the application of the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine. The trial court denied St. Joseph's motion to dismiss because it found the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine inapplicable.
St. Joseph is now before this Court seeking a writ of mandamus requiring the trial court to dismiss the underlying action. It again claims the trial court is without subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the Alumni's cause of action because of the application of ecclesiastical abstention. The Court of Appeals, where this writ action originated, declined to issue a writ, concluding ecclesiastical abstention did not apply because the underlying case could be adjudicated on the basis of neutral principles of law. St. Joseph appeals the writ denial to this Court as a matter of right.
Before this Court, St. Joseph contends the Court of Appeals erred in declining to issue a writ because, regardless of the neutrality of the applicable secular law, the underlying suit is one concerning the internal governance of a religious entity. As such, St. Joseph argues, the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine applies and deprives the circuit court of subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the suit.
We affirm the denial of a writ by the Court of Appeals, but we do so on other grounds. We conclude the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine does not divest our courts of subject-matter jurisdiction to hear cases they are otherwise authorized to adjudicate. So the issuance of a writ is improper. Instead, we reason that the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine is to be applied as an affirmative defense akin to the ministerial exception, including the right to an interlocutory appeal following a trial court's denial of its application. As such and in the interests of judicial economy, we treat St. Joseph's petition for a writ of mandamus as an interlocutory appeal from the trial court's denial of its motion to dismiss based on the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine. And on the merits
Before our customary recitation of the circumstances encompassing this case, we must address a pending motion that bears directly on our view of the relevant facts. Alumni has not filed a timely brief in response to St. Joseph's brief and has moved this Court for an enlargement of time to do so.
The original deadline for Alumni's appellees' brief was March 3, 2014. Alumni first moved this Court for an enlargement of time on that date, requesting the deadline be extended to March 21, 2014. We granted Alumni's motion with little objection from St. Joseph. But Alumni failed to meet this extended deadline and did not mail their appellees' brief to the Court until March 24, 2014, one working day after the deadline.
When a party seeks an enlargement of time after the expiration of the time period to be enlarged, as is the case here, the Court may, in its discretion, grant the enlargement if it finds "the failure to act was the result of excusable neglect."
We are unconvinced that Alumni has shown its failure to comply with this Court's deadline was the result of excusable neglect. We cannot find that incorrectly transcribing the filing deadline, a date Alumni's counsel specifically requested when seeking the first enlargement, constitutes excusable neglect.
Because we have denied Alumni's motion for enlargement of time, we have no brief from Alumni filed consistently with our rules.
St. Joseph urges us to reverse the ruling of the Court of Appeals because its brief "reasonably appears to sustain such action." Although St. Joseph's argument is not unreasonable, reversal of the decision of the Court of Appeals would result in dismissal of Alumni's underlying claim. The fault for failing to comply with the deadline ostensibly lies with Alumni's counsel, so dismissal of Alumni's cause of action seems too harsh a punishment to levy against the faultless party. We find it more appropriate to accept St. Joseph's version of the facts and issues as true. So the facts portrayed below are completely aligned with those presented by St. Joseph.
St. Joseph Catholic Orphan Society was founded in Louisville by several German-Catholic parishes in 1848. These parishes worked together to manage the orphanage according to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. St. Joseph has since incorporated, but its Catholic roots endure.
A golden cross adorns the dome atop the orphanage, and a statue of St. Joseph holding the infant Jesus stands above the main entrance. A functioning Roman Catholic chapel lies at the center of the orphanage, but St. Joseph does not proselytize or force religion upon its residents or employees.
Beyond housing and educating needy and at-risk youth, St. Joseph's Articles of Incorporation include "assist[ing] the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Louisville in providing for the care, counseling, and education of children" as its mission. This principle is echoed in the preamble of its bylaws, stating that St. Joseph "operates according to the beliefs, teaching, and mission of the Catholic Church."
St. Joseph's relationship with the Roman Catholic Church is also recognized in its tax treatment. St. Joseph enjoys federal tax-exempt status based on a group exemption granted to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This exemption applies to all organizations operated, supervised, or controlled by the Roman Catholic Church. St. Joseph is still required to make tax filings in light of its exempt status, but does not make the required filings on its own behalf. Instead, the Archdiocese of Louisville includes St. Joseph's documentation in it's own filings. St. Joseph also successfully held itself out as a religious entity when claiming its ERISA retirement plan was a "religious plan."
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Louisville (or his designee) is also provided a permanent seat on St. Joseph's Board of Trustees. The Board's actions are "subject
Earl Hartlage was a member of St. Joseph's Board of Trustees when several employees accused him of harassment. In response to these allegations, the Board entertained a vote to remove Hartlage. A simple majority voted in favor of his removal, but St. Joseph's bylaws require a two-thirds majority to remove a Board member. So Hartlage was not removed.
Outraged over Hartlage's continued presence on St. Joseph's Board, some Board members
St. Joseph's annual meeting took place nearly six months after the unsuccessful attempt to remove Hartlage. During the meeting, concerned members, including the resigned Board members, proposed a resolution replacing the then-current Board members and amending St. Joseph's bylaws to include measures to protect against Board-member misconduct. The resolution passed resoundingly by a vote of 113 to 8. The Archbishop approved the resolution in full after concluding that it was not contrary to beliefs, teaching, or mission of the Roman Catholic Church.
The ousted Board members, along with the St. Joseph Home Alumni Association,
St. Joseph responded to the Alumni's complaint with a motion to dismiss, arguing, among other matters, the trial court's subject-matter jurisdiction was barred by the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine. The trial court found the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine inapplicable and denied St. Joseph's motion to dismiss because it concluded St. Joseph was not acting on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church when convening its annual meeting. St. Joseph then moved the trial court to stay the underlying case pending disposition of a writ proceeding adjudicating its jurisdictional challenge. St. Joseph filed its petition for writ of mandamus, and the trial court granted the requested stay.
The issuance of a writ is an extraordinary remedy. As such, a writ may issue in only very limited circumstances:
St. Joseph seeks the first class of writ, alleging the trial court was without jurisdiction to hear the underlying case by virtue of the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine. By erroneously denying its motion to dismiss and allowing the case to proceed, the trial court, St. Joseph argues, acted outside its jurisdiction.
The standard for writs of the first class — like the one sought here — is often misconstrued to require the petitioner prove irreparable harm and the lack of an adequate remedy on appeal. We take this opportunity to reiterate those elements apply only to writs of the second class where the petitioner claims the lower court is acting erroneously but within its jurisdiction.
St. Joseph's challenge to the trial court's subject-matter jurisdiction to adjudicate the case below presents solely an issue of law, which we review de novo.
We find it prudent to determine the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine's impact on trial court subject-matter jurisdiction before addressing the doctrine's application. Although our case law has routinely considered ecclesiastical abstention a bar to trial court jurisdiction, we have yet to analyze that doctrine in light of our jurisprudence addressing subject-matter jurisdiction. Courts in other jurisdictions have reached various conclusions when deciding the effect of ecclesiastical abstention,
The ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine, discussed in greater detail below, is a mechanism employed to prevent secular courts from violating the guarantees embodied in the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment. Broadly, this doctrine prohibits secular courts from adjudicating quintessentially ecclesiastical issues, such as matters relating to faith, doctrine, and ecclesiastical governance. To be sure, the mere involvement of a church or other religious entity in a suit before a secular court does not require invocation of the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine.
Our treatment of the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine as a bar to subject-matter jurisdiction can be traced to the seminal case on the matter, Marsh v. Johnson.
The Marsh holding remained the eminent declaration of the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine in the Commonwealth until it found a home in a more recent iteration of controlling ecclesiastical-abstention case law, Music v. United Methodist Church.
In Music, a case heavily relied upon by St. Joseph, we recognized Marsh's holding that secular courts are without jurisdiction to decide non-secular controversies and, citing the First and Fourteenth Amendments, held that ecclesiastical abstention preempts the subject-matter jurisdiction of Kentucky courts.
The most recent of our trilogy of ecclesiastical-abstention cases is Kirby v. Lexington Theological Seminary.
These cases speak in terms of jurisdiction and subject-matter jurisdiction but avoid a more robust analysis as required here. The time has come for an examination of the effect of ecclesiastical abstention through the lens of subject-matter jurisdiction principles.
Kentucky circuit courts are courts of "general jurisdiction,"
To aid in our determination of whether ecclesiastical abstention prevents general-jurisdiction courts from hearing a broad "kind of case" or "this case" specifically, it is instructive to contemplate the analysis relevant to assessing the pertinence of ecclesiastical abstention. When addressing whether to invoke the doctrine, "[c]ourts must look not at the label placed on the action but at the actual issues the court has been asked to decide."
That all cases where ecclesiastical abstention applies have similar characteristics, namely that they involve ecclesiastical issues, does not render them a type of case any more than cases invoking qualified governmental immunity are a case type for purposes of precluding circuit-court jurisdiction. We, therefore, conclude that ecclesiastical abstention does not divest Kentucky courts of subject-matter jurisdiction because it does not render our
Other courts have reached a similar conclusion when faced with this issue. The Indiana Supreme Court has held that Indiana courts, "with general authority to hear matters like employment disputes[, are] not ousted of subject matter or personal jurisdiction because the defendant pleads a religious defense."
Determining what the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine is not — a bar to subject-matter jurisdiction — begs the question of what it is. In answering this question, we find persuasive our reasoning espoused in Kirby, used to conclude the ministerial exception — a related doctrine also borne of the First Amendment's religion clauses — operates as an affirmative defense. We reasoned "the ministerial exception does not strip a court of its jurisdiction but, instead, simply disallows the forward progress of the particular suit."
Like other affirmative defenses recognized by this Commonwealth, ecclesiastical abstention operates in confession and avoidance, meaning that even assuming the plaintiff's allegations to be true, he is nonetheless not entitled to recover. So, just as in Kirby, we draw an analogy to perhaps the most commonly encountered defense of confession and avoidance, qualified governmental immunity, and aver that the ecclesiastical-abstention defense is to be applied in a manner that is procedurally consistent with the application of qualified governmental immunity. Specifically, the party asserting the ecclesiastical-abstention defense bears the burden of proving its applicability, the applicability of the ecclesiastical-abstention defense is a question of law to be decided by the court as a threshold matter, and the denial of ecclesiastical abstention is "subject to prompt appellate review."
We must decide whether to allow this technicality, which was not extensively argued in briefing, to win the day and mandate denial of the relief St. Joseph seeks. We find that equity and judicial economy mandate we reach the merits of St. Joseph's claim. This shift in our ecclesiastical-abstention jurisprudence was unexpected, and St. Joseph had followed the appropriate path to redress by seeking a writ. So St. Joseph's actions in pursuing this action cannot be faulted. But if we deny St. Joseph a writ without reaching the merits of its claim, it will be too late for St. Joseph to avail itself of the interlocutory review procedure we establish today. Further, if a tolling provision is found to apply allowing St. Joseph the benefit of an immediate appeal, it will present the same argument, under the same standard of review — de novo — that we would decide today. So, in contemplation of equity and judicial economy, we will consider the merits of St. Joseph's argument that the trial court erred in failing to terminate litigation on the basis of ecclesiastical abstention as if this were an interlocutory appeal.
The concept of ecclesiastical abstention or church autonomy has long been recognized as a necessary corollary to the First Amendment's religion clauses. To protect the rights embodied in the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment, ecclesiastical abstention provides "a spirit of freedom for religious organizations, an independence from secular control or manipulation — in short, power to decide for themselves, free from state interference — matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine."
"At bottom, the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine is primarily interested in preventing any chilling effect on church practices as a result of government intrusion in the form of secular courts."
The mere inclusion of a religious organization as a party to a suit does not necessarily implicate the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine.
In its analysis of the merits of St. Joseph's claim, the Court of Appeals concluded ecclesiastical abstention to be inapplicable because it found the underlying suit could be adjudicated to resolution through the application of neutral principles of law without wading into doctrinal waters. St. Joseph challenges this conclusion, arguing that this case concerns the internal governance of a religious organization, and neutral principles of law may not be applied to such cases.
We agree with St. Joseph that the neutral-principles doctrine does not extend to issues of ecclesiastical governance,
It is axiomatic that the underlying dispute is about the internal governance of St. Joseph. The crux of the controversy revolves around who is entitled to govern St. Joseph by way of their position on the Board of Trustees. Alumni's counsel conceded as much at oral argument before the Court of Appeals, and its complaint seeks
The definition of religious entity is not so narrow as to apply ecclesiastical abstention only to traditional religious entities such as churches, synagogues, and mosques. Instead, purported religious organizations will be considered such "whenever that entity's mission is marked by clear or obvious religious characteristics."
St. Joseph's religious mission is no more clearly described that in its Articles of Incorporation where part of its mission is to "assist the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Louisville in providing for the care, counseling, and education of children." The preamble to St. Joseph's bylaws also asserts it "operates according to the beliefs, teaching, and mission of the Catholic Church."
St. Joseph's religious identity can also be seen in its unique relationship with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Louisville. He (or his designee) has a permanent seat on St. Joseph's Board of Trustees. The Archbishop must review any amendments to St. Joseph's bylaws to ensure that they are consistent with the "beliefs, teachings, and missions" of the Roman Catholic Church before they can be effectuated. The Archbishop is also vested with the power to invalidate unilaterally any action of the Board that he deems contrary to the principles of Roman Catholicism.
The campus of St. Joseph is adorned with many of the embellishments of religious symbolism expected in a religious institution, including crosses and a statue of St. Joseph and the infant Jesus prominently displayed atop the roof above the main entrance.
Other facts not necessarily relevant to show St. Joseph's religious mission but are nonetheless pertinent to show St. Joseph's general religious nature include: its tax-exempt status under the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' group exemption; the inclusion of its tax filings in the Archdiocese tax return; and, its successful claim that its ERISA retirement plan qualified as a "religious plan."
Upon consideration of the facts before us, we are constrained to conclude that St. Joseph is a religious organization. Although there are surely countervailing facts not outlined above, any such facts are not within our reach because of Alumni's failure to file a timely brief in the record, and our requisite deference to the facts as outlined by St. Joseph.
Based on the foregoing, we affirm the Court of Appeals' denial of a writ because
All sitting. All concur.