Hope Intern. University v. Superior Court

• Citation: 119 Cal.App.4th 719,14 Cal.Rptr.3d 643
• Decision Date: 18 June 2004
• Docket Number: No. G032967.,G032967.
• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Parties: HOPE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Orange County, Respondent; Curtis C. Rouanzoin et al., Real Parties in Interest.

14 Cal.Rptr.3d 643

119 Cal.App.4th 719

HOPE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Orange County, Respondent;

Curtis C. Rouanzoin et al., Real Parties in Interest.

No. G032967.

Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division Three.

June 18, 2004.

Jackson Lewis, Benjamin S. Cardozo and Drew L. Alexis, Los Angeles, for Petitioner.

Feldhake, August & Roquemore, Robert J. Feldhake and Dimitri P. Gross, Irvine, for Real Parties in Interest.

OPINION

SILLS, P.J.

I. INTRODUCTION

Hope University, affiliated with the Church of Christ, fired two professors because of the perception that they had had an affair while one of the professor's divorce was still pending. Both Hope and the Church of Christ take a dim view of that sort of thing, and in any event the university holds its professors to an "abstain from all appearance of evil" standard from I Thessalonians 5:22. Ironically, both professors taught in the marriage and family counseling department. They sued for marital status discrimination, breach of their employment agreement, and for promissory estoppel because one of the professors had, years before, moved his clinical psychological counseling center to the campus. The university brought a motion for summary judgment or, in the alternative, a motion for summary adjudication. The trial court denied the motion for summary judgment and refused to even consider summary adjudication because the university had not organized its points and authorities by cause of action. The university petitioned for writ relief, and, because the case raised important issues concerning the extent of the "ministerial exception" in California (see Schmoll v. Chapman University (1999) 70 Cal.App.4th 1434, 83 Cal.Rptr.2d 426 [precluding judicial examination into the merits of the discharge of chaplain]), we scheduled an order to show cause on the question of the university's entitlement to summary judgment.

Our conclusions:

First, the trial court clearly erred in refusing to consider summary adjudication. Nothing in the governing rules requires the moving party to organize its points and authorities in support of a motion for summary judgment or, in the alternative, summary adjudication, by cause of action. In fact, doing so (as in this case) takes valuable space from overarching substantive arguments that may apply to more than one cause of action.

Second, under the facts and procedural posture of this particular case, we cannot say as a matter of law that the ministerial exception applies. There is a genuine issue of material fact on this record as to whether the two professors really were "religious" employees.

Third, to the degree that the marital status discrimination claims are predicated on Hope's reaction to the perception (which might even have been an unreasonable one, more on that later) of an illicit relationship before the marriage, the claims are not viable as a matter of substantive marital status antidiscrimination law. To that degree the university's animus, reasonable or not, was not directed at their marriage as such, but at what their marriage was thought to imply about past behavior.

However, to the degree that the marital status discrimination claims are predicated on an a priori policy on the part of Hope that two people working in the same department could not be married to each other, the claims are viable. In a word, regulations governing California's marital status antidiscrimination laws are clear that marriage between two coworkers is not ipso facto a reason to get rid of one of them.

II. FACTS

A. The School

It would be an understatement to say that Hope International University is a religious institution. It is affiliated with the Church of Christ, meaning "those churches that are dedicated to the restoration of the New Testament Church in its ordinances, its faith and its life." The university looks to the Bible as its "ultimate constitution," and requires its professors to accept it "as the authoritative word of God." While professors can belong to various denominations, they must belong to at least one Christian denomination and be "involved with the life of the church" (presumably meaning "the church" in a generic, as distinct from specifically denominational, sense). The purpose of the school is to educate its students to "be equipped for a fruitful Christian service, and particularly for the Christian ministry."

Hope's faculty handbook imposes on its professors the role of Christian exemplar. As the handbook says, "What happens at a secretary's desk, in an administrator's office, in academic advising, around the table in the cafeteria, . . . etc. all contribute to the student's education and growth," and thus "it is imperative that our employees agree to abide by [our mission] in every activity that might have an effect upon any of our students." Hence faculty are to "conduct both on and off-campus activities and relationships in a manner that models a demonstration of a growing Christ-likeness." Academic freedom is to be practiced only "within the context and constraints of the mission statement of the University."

The religious orientation carries over into Hope's employee handbook as it regards firing. A section on "Separation of Service" states that any faculty member may be terminated "immediately in the case of grievous moral failure." Reminiscent of the rule of ejusdem generis, the handbook does not attempt to define "grievous moral failure" but cites Exodus 20:1-17 and Galatians 5:19 as examples of expected moral behavior. Exodus 20:1-17 is where the first listing of the Ten Commandments may be found in the Old Testament. Galatians 5:19 provides: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness."

B. The Professors

Which leads us to the case before us, which developed out of a perception of an extramarital affair between two of Hope's faculty members, both of whom taught ironically enough, in the Marriage and Family Therapy department. Both professors' teaching contracts indicated that they were to be guided by the faculty handbook.

One of the professors, Curtis Rouanzoin, is a licensed psychologist and marriage and family therapist with a doctorate in clinical psychology. He was a professor at Hope for over 20 years, and served most of those years as a tenured faculty member. He is the author of several articles in field psychology and holds various board certificates. Beginning in 1981, he served as chair of the undergraduate department of psychology, and by 1989 he chaired both the undergraduate and graduate departments. In 1998 he became chair of the graduate department in Marriage and Family Therapy, and also served as assistant dean of the graduate school from 1999-2000.

In addition to teaching, Rouanzoin has a private practice in psychological counseling and marriage and family therapy known as Rouanzoin & Associates. In the early 1980's, when Hope decided to include a marriage and family therapy program on campus, its administrators solicited Rouanzoin to integrate his private practice with the school. In exchange for supervising Pacific Counseling Center's operations, Hope agreed to pay Rouanzoin a monthly stipend from which he could then pay staff salaries and expenses. This stipend was memorialized in an annual "Memorandum of Agreement" between Hope and Rouanzoin which set forth the monthly stipend to be paid for running the center over the next year. Once up and running, Pacific Counseling Center provided low-cost counseling services to Hope's students, faculty, and members of the surrounding community, and allowed students in Hope's Marriage and Family Therapy program to gain clinical experience.

Hope also provided Rouanzoin & Associates with office space at lower rent than what was otherwise charged for similar space. Rouanzoin paid (in his words) "tens of thousands of dollars" for substantial improvements to this space, including the installation of new carpet and the building of a reception area, a storage area, and various other offices.

As the director of the Pacific Counseling Center, Rouanzoin described his duties as: "oversight of the coordinator, of the intake personnel, of the supervisors, and the ongoing quality of the program with the Master's level students that were working through the counseling center." He would later explain that he was not a secular employee, but "a witness for the students for the university" meaning that he was required to educate "the students in their major while keeping the other foot in the mission of the university." In his declaration to the court, however, he indicated that although he integrated "Christian concepts" into his classroom,¹ as were noted on his syllabi,² he never taught religious classes, and did not view himself as a "`religious' employee."

The other plaintiff, Lisa Riggs, has her doctorate in clinical psychology. She began working at the Pacific Counseling Center in 1994 where she served as the Coordinator for Clinical Training and as a registered psychological assistant. In 1995, she was placed in charge of coordinating the clinical training for Hope's marriage and family therapy students. She joined Hope's faculty in 1997, and became tenured in 2001. She taught both graduate and undergraduate courses, and later became Hope's director of continuing education.

Riggs declared that while she too integrated "Christian concepts" into her classroom, she was teaching psychology and other secular classes, and was never instructed to "teach the Bible classes." Her syllabus for a course in the Approaches to the Treatment of Children includes Hope's mission statement, and, as required by Hope, explains that the course "contributes" to Hope's mission. The syllabus also states one of the objectives of the course is to "help student[s] integrate their Christian faith into their understanding of treatment of children, particularly...