Alicea v. New Brunswick Theological Seminary

• Decision Date: 01 June 1992
• Citation: 608 A.2d 218,128 N.J. 303
• Parties: , 75 Ed. Law Rep. 834 Benjamin ALICEA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NEW BRUNSWICK THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, a not for profit corporation, Defendant-Respondent, and Robert A. White, Defendant.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 303

128 N.J. 303

608 A.2d 218, 75 Ed. Law Rep. 834

Benjamin ALICEA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NEW BRUNSWICK THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, a not for profit corporation, Defendant-Respondent, and Robert A. White, Defendant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Oct. 22, 1991.

Decided June 1, 1992.

Ronald K. Chen, Berkeley Heights, argued for plaintiff-appellant.

Aron M. Schwartz, Morristown, argued for defendant-respondent (Vogel, Chait, Schwartz and Collins, attorneys).

The opinion of the court was delivered by

CLIFFORD, J.

On this appeal we apply the principles declared in Welter v. Seton Hall University, 128 N.J. 279, 608 A.2d 206 (1992), decided this day, in which we hold that enforcement of an employment contract did not violate the First Amendment because the plaintiffs neither performed ministerial functions for defendant Seton Hall University nor could reasonably have contemplated that compliance with Roman Catholic Canon Law constituted an implied covenant of or condition precedent to the employment contract. In this case, after defendant New Brunswick Theological Seminary (NBTS) refused to confer tenure-track status on plaintiff, the Reverend Benjamin J. Alicea, he brought suit, alleging breach of an employment promise. The Law Division granted NBTS's motion for summary judgment based on the First Amendment, and the Appellate Division affirmed. 244 N.J.Super. 119, 581 A.2d 900 (1990). We granted certification, 126 N.J. 329, 598 A.2d 887 (1991), and now affirm.

I

The General Synod governs the Reformed Church of North America (the Church), which the Appellate Division characterized as a "hierarchical ecclesiastical body." 244 N.J.Super. at 122, 581 A.2d 900. The General Synod enjoys "an original authority over all the seminaries * * *, the appointment and installation of their professors, and the regulation of the courses of instruction" formally affiliated with the Church. Ibid. The Church's Board of Theological Education (BTE) supervises the Church's seminaries, including NBTS.

Although NBTS seeks "to prepare men and women for educated and faithful leadership in the [C]hurch * * * and * * * in specialized ministries," it offers degrees, in conjunction with other institutions, that incorporate non-ecclesiastical disciplines. 244 N.J.Super. at 123, 581 A.2d 900. NBTS does not confer secular degrees other than those conferred through that inter-institutional program. Because recent enrollment has increasingly reflected a non-Church-member student body, the seminary has appointed several faculty members and administrators who are ordained as ministers in other Christian religions. However, all non-Church-ordained faculty and administrators must subscribe to the Church's Declaration for Professors of Theology, attest to the Church's doctrinal standards, and submit to the jurisdiction of BTE. As the Appellate Division observed, "NBTS is an institution of the Church and is wholly accountable to it." Ibid.

BTE incorporated NBTS as a non-profit corporation under N.J.S.A. 15A:16-2. The General Synod is the sole shareholder, with BTE exercising supervisory authority over NBTS. To be a member of BTE, one must be either a minister or lay member of the Church. All BTE members serve as NBTS trustees, and the president of NBTS serves as member ex officio of BTE. Only BTE may grant full-time faculty appointments for terms exceeding one year, and only BTE may promote administrators and faculty. NBTS's comprehensive faculty-personnel manual provides that after efforts at resolving faculty grievances have failed, the grievant "may * * * appeal[ ] to [BTE] through its Student and Faculty Concerns Committee." The manual also sets forth, although somewhat ambiguously, the procedure by which faculty members are to be considered for tenure.

Alicea, an ordained minister of the Church who began working for NBTS in 1978, was promoted in 1980 to the position of Director of NBTS's Urban Studies Program, which offers evening theology courses. After the three-year term of plaintiff's appointment as head of that program had expired, the Reverend Howard Hageman, then President of NBTS, offered plaintiff a position as assistant professor. Alicea accepted the one-year appointment to NBTS's faculty. The present litigation centers on the terms and effect of that employment offer.

Alicea characterizes his appointment by Hageman as one component of a larger plan according to which plaintiff agreed to forego a professorship at the San Francisco Theological Seminary and to remain at NBTS. He emphasizes that at the time of his appointment to the faculty, NBTS suffered a shortage of evening-program personnel. As further evidence of NBTS's need for plaintiff's skills during that period, Alicea cites the end of the affiliation between the New York Theological Seminary and NBTS, and the resignation of a faculty member in the same field as plaintiff. Alicea alleges that in exchange for his agreement to remain at NBTS, Hageman assured him that he would be placed on tenure-track status and that he would be granted tenure after completion of his doctoral studies.

Relying on the provision of BTE's bylaws that authorizes the President to make only one-year appointments, NBTS characterizes the promise as one for a "temporary and non-tenure-track" promotion that did not require BTE ratification. Hageman concedes that BTE never reviewed the appointment. Alicea explains NBTS's conspicuous failure to observe formal procedure by alleging that the Church had long since abandoned that review mechanism in favor of ad hoc appointments by the President. Plaintiff contends, in effect, that by implicitly ratifying such informal procedures, NBTS had conferred apparent authority on Hageman to grant plaintiff eventual tenure status. After plaintiff resigned and efforts at settlement stalled, he filed this suit against NBTS and the Reverend Robert A. White (Hageman's successor), claiming that he had been constructively discharged and that he had resigned under duress.

The trial court, declining to exercise jurisdiction over what it perceived to be "a religious, doctrinal dispute," granted NBTS's motion for summary judgment. See 244 N.J.Super. at 127, 581 A.2d 900. The court held further that plaintiff's agreement with Hageman was unenforceable because it had not been ratified by BTE, ibid.; because plaintiff had failed to exhaust all administrative remedies available in the Church; and because plaintiff had resigned.

The Appellate Division affirmed, first noting that "this case is devoid of questions relating to spiritual matters or church doctrine * * * even though it arose as a result of a controversy over church practice." 244 N.J.Super. at 127-28, 581 A.2d 900. After recounting the law of apparent authority and enforceable employment promises, the court balanced the State's "legitimate interest" in adjudicating contract disputes against the "independence from secular control" conferred on religious institutions by the First Amendment. Id. at 130-31, 581 A.2d 900; see Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral, 344 U.S. 94, 116, 73 S.Ct. 143, 154, 97 L.Ed. 120, 136 (1952).

The court explained that although New Jersey courts defer to determinations by religious authorities in hierarchical religions in matters of religious doctrine or church polity, the Supreme Court has also authorized resort to neutral principles of law for resolution of intra-faith disputes. 244 N.J.Super. at 132, 581 A.2d 900. The Appellate Division described that approach as "call[ing] for the secular examination of church deeds, constitutions, bylaws, canons and the like for settling church disputes, thereby freeing 'civil courts completely from entanglement in questions of religious doctrine, polity, and practice.' " Ibid. (quoting Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 603, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 3025, 61 L.Ed.2d 775, 785 (1979)). Recognizing that the neutral-principles-of-law method "constitutes a sensible accommodation of religious and secular values," ibid., the court below nevertheless concluded that application of that approach to this case would not "serve the interests of justice." Id. at 133, 581 A.2d 900. The court based that conclusion on its perception that assessment of Hageman's apparent authority to offer eventual tenure to plaintiff, even if based on church documents, bylaws, and the like, would require "careful scrutiny of past practices and customs" and "extensive inquiry into church polity." Id. at 133-34, 581 A.2d 900. Because that analysis would "threaten the freedom of the church from secular entanglement," the court affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff's complaint, but added that it "expected" NBTS to comply with its faculty manual by submitting the dispute to the Student and Faculty Concerns Committee. Id. at 135-36, 581 A.2d 900.

II

The arguments in this case differ slightly from those in Welter, supra, 128 N.J. 279, 608 A.2d 206. In Welter, the defendant, a Roman Catholic university, relied on the Free Exercise Clause in asserting that because Roman Catholic Canon Law superseded the "notice" provisions of the employment contract at issue, the First Amendment required that courts abstain from enforcing those provisions. In this case, NBTS claims that entertaining jurisdiction over the parties' dispute would entail impermissible entanglement with Church administration. See Laurence H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 14-11, at 1230-31 (2d ed. 1988) (noting that "several lower courts have carved out regulatory exemptions for religious organizations, especially in employment laws"). Apparently agreeing with NBTS's contention, the Appellate Division based its holding on the sound principle that when courts foresee that resolution of even secular factual disputes would result in regulatory entanglement in church business, judicial abstention is merited. 244 N.J.Super. at 128, 581 A.2d 900. However, because we conclude that enforcement of Hageman's promise would violate...