Hankins v. The N.Y. Annual Conference

• Decision Date: 28 September 2007
• Docket Number: No. 03-CV-3275 (DRH)(ETB).,03-CV-3275 (DRH)(ETB).
• Citation: 516 F.Supp.2d 225
• Parties: Rev. John Paul HANKINS, Plaintiff, v. THE NEW YORK ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF the UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, The Stony Brook Community Church (United Methodist), and Bishop Ernest S. Lyght, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

516 F.Supp.2d 225

Rev. John Paul HANKINS, Plaintiff, v. THE NEW YORK ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF the UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, The Stony Brook Community Church (United Methodist), and Bishop Ernest S. Lyght, Defendants.

No. 03-CV-3275 (DRH)(ETB).

United States District Court, E.D. New York.

September 28, 2007.

Glynn Mercep and Purcell, LLP, by Bradley C. Abbott, Esq., Stony Brook, NY, for Plaintiff.

Law Offices of Frederick K. Brewington, by Frederick K. Brewington, Esq., Hempstead, NY, Williams & Connolly LLP, by Kevin T. Baine, Esq., Washington D.C., for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

DENIS R. HURLEY, District Judge.

Plaintiff Rev. John Paul Hankins ("Plaintiff') brings the present action against defendants The New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church ("NYAC"), the Stony Brook Community Church (United Methodist), and Bishop Ernest S. Lyght ("Bishop Lyght") (collectively, "Defendants") for violations of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (the "ADEA") and the New York State Human Rights Law ("NYSHRL"), claiming that he was discriminated against on the basis of his age. Defendants have moved to dismiss the Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure ("Rule") 12(b)(1) and Rule 12(b)(6). For the reasons that follow, Defendants' motion is granted.

BACKGROUND

The following facts are drawn from the Complaint. Hankins was ordained by the NYAC and served as a clergy member from 1962 to July 1, 2003. He turned 70 on November 5, 2002, and was forced into retirement on July 1, 2003 pursuant to paragraph 356 of the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, which provides as follows:

Every clergy member of an annual conference who will have attained age seventy on or before July 1 in the year in which the conference is held shall automatically be retired.

(Compl. ¶ 12.) The Book of Discipline is "the most current statement of how United Methodists agree to live together," (id. ¶ 7), and "contains within its scope subject matters that are sectarian and ecclesiastical in nature being related to the nature of the Deity and the Trinity, the scriptures, the tenets of the United Methodist Church, the theological grounding of biblical faith, the teachings of John Wesley and/or other religious principles or values," (id. ¶ 8) as well as "subject matters that are secular, temporal and/or civil in nature not being determined, controlled or influenced by any religious considerations." (Id. ¶ 9.) According to the Complaint, paragraph 356, under which Plaintiff was mandatorily retired, "is a secular, temporal, and/or civil subject matter, not being determined, controlled or influenced by any religious considerations." (Id. ¶ 13.)

Bishop Lyght, as presiding bishop of the NYAC, told Hankins and other members of the Church that he had the authority to reappoint. Hankins as pastor after his retirement but that it was his "personal policy (as distinguished from the policy set forth in the Book of Discipline) never to reappoint members of the clergy who have attained age seventy to the church out of which they were retired." (Id. ¶ 19.)

Plaintiff filed the instant action on July 3, 2003, after obtaining a right to sue letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He claims that the mandatory retirement policy violates the ADEA, the NYSHRL, and the NYAC's covenant with him. He also alleges that Bishop Lyght's personal policy against reappointing retired clergy violates the ADEA and the NYSHRL. The Complaint seeks damages as well as injunctive relief against Defendants.

On September 17, 2003, the Court, ruling orally, dismissed Plaintiffs Complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), finding that Plaintiffs ADEA claim was barred by the ministerial exception to the ADEA. (See Sept. 17, 2003 Tr., docket no. 22.) Declining to retain subject matter jurisdiction over the remaining state claims, the case was dismissed in its entirety.

By decision dated February 16, 2006, the Second Circuit vacated this Court's September 17, 2003 decision and "remand[ed] for reconsideration under the RFRA [Religious Freedom and Restoration Act] standards." Hankins v. Lyght, 441 F.3d 96, 109 (2d Cir.2006).

By letter dated February 20, 2006, Defendants indicated their intent to move to dismiss the Complaint. On March 28, 2006, the Second Circuit issued its mandate and on April 5, 2006, the Court issued a briefing schedule with regard to Defendants' motion.

Defendants filed their fully briefed motion with the Court on September 15, 2006. In his opposition papers, Plaintiff indicates that he is withdrawing his request for injunctive relief. He attaches a proposed amended complaint which is nearly identical to the original but for the deletion of the request for injunctive relief and the addition of an expanded monetary demand.

On February 26, 2007, Defendants wrote a letter to the Court advising of a subsequent development in a case cited in their moving brief. (See docket no. 41.) By letters dated March 20 and March 28, 2007, the Court was advised that Plaintiffs then counsel had passed away and that Plaintiff was seeking a stay of the proceedings so that he could retain new counsel and reply to Defendants' February 26, 2007 letter. (Id. nos. 42, 44.) By Order dated March 30, 2007, the Court stayed decision on the pending motion for thirty days to allow Plaintiff to secure new counsel. On May 4, 2007, Plaintiff's current counsel appeared and was granted an extension to May 18, 2007 to respond to Defendants' letter. Thereafter, counsel was granted a second extension of time to reply. Finally, on May 21, 2007, Plaintiffs counsel submitted a supplemental affirmation. By letter dated May 29, 2007, Defendants indicated that they would not be filing any further papers.

DISCUSSION

Before the Court can address the merits of the parties' arguments, the Court must first, examine the case law both leading up to and' following the Circuit's decision in this case. The Court begins by reviewing the ministerial exception.

I. The Ministerial Exception

The ADEA makes it unlawful for an employer "to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's age ...." 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1). While the ADEA generally applies to religious institutions, see DeMarco v. Holy Cross High School, 4 F.3d 166, 172 (2d Cir.1993), courts have recognized that in some instances, application of the ADEA to religious institutions conflicts with First Amendment principles. Accordingly, courts have Created a "ministerial exception" whereby religious institutions are immune from discrimination suits by "ministerial" employees.¹

The ministerial exception was first recognized in McClure v. Salvation Army, 460 F.2d 553 (5th Cir.1972), a case in which the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that an ordained minister of the Salvation Army could not maintain a Title VII claim for salary discrimination and retaliatory discharge. "The relationship between an organized church and its ministers," the court explained, "is its lifeblood." Id. at 558. Employing a strict scrutiny analysis, the court held that applying Title VII to that relationship, "would result in an encroachment by the State into an area of religious freedom which it is forbidden to enter by the principles of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment." Id. at 560.

The ministerial exception has since been widely recognized by the federal circuits throughout the nation.² The exception is premised upon two doctrines, viz. (1) the First Amendment protects the right of a church to conduct its internal affairs without government intervention; and (2) the minister-church relationship is so sacrosanct that discrimination claims arising out of it are inseparable from religious practice. See supra note 2.

Although the exception has been applied by numerous federal and state courts in a variety of settings, the Supreme Court has never addressed the scope — or existence — of the ministerial exception. Nonetheless, there is "a long line of Supreme Court cases that affirm the fundamental right of churches to `decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.'" EEOC v. Catholic Univ. of Am., 83 F.3d 455, 462 (D.C.Cir.1996) (quoting Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral, 344 U.S. 94, 116, 73 S.Ct. 143, 97 L.Ed. 120 (1952)). The church autonomy line of cases begins with Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 13 Wall. 679, 20 L.Ed. 666 (1871) where the Court declined to intervene in a property dispute between two factions of a church. The Court stated:

[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. at 727, 13 Wall. 679. Since Watson, the Court has repeatedly applied the church autonomy doctrine. See, e.g., Gonzalez v. Roman Catholic Archbishop, 280 U.S. 1, 16, 50 S.Ct. 5, 74 L.Ed. 131 (1929) ("Because the appointment is a canonical act, it is the function of the church authorities to determine what the essential qualifications of a chaplain are and whether the candidate possesses them. In the absence of fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness, the decisions of the proper church tribunals on matters purely ecclesiastical, although affecting civil rights, are accepted in litigation before the secular courts as conclusive, because the parties in interest made them so by contract or otherwise."); Kedroff, 344 U.S. at 107-08, 73 S.Ct. 143 ("Legislation that regulates church administration, the operation of the churches, the appointment of clergy ... prohibits the free exercise of religion."); Presbyterian Church in...