Hiles v. Episcopal Diocese fo MA

• Decision Date: 09 November 2000
• Docket Number: P-249
• Citation: 744 N.E.2d 1116,51 Mass. App. Ct. 220
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts
• Parties: (Mass.App.Ct. 2001) JAMES R. HILES & another <A HREF="#fr1-1" name="fn1-1">1 vs. EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS & others. <A HREF="#fr1-2" name="fn1-2">2 99-

744 N.E.2d 1116 (Mass.App.Ct. 2001)

JAMES R. HILES & another¹ vs. EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS & others.²

99-P-249

Massachusetts Court of Appeals

November 9, 2000.

March 28, 2001.

County: Middlesex.

Present: Laurence, Smith, & Gillerman, JJ.

Libel and Slander. Jurisdiction, Ecclesiastical controversy. Practice, Civil, Dismissal.

Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on May 13, 1996.

Motions to dismiss were heard by Wendie I. Gershengorn, J.

Stephen C. Hoctor for the plaintiffs.

William F. Looney, Jr. for the defendants.

Clyde D. Bergstresser for Linda M. Hastie.

GILLERMAN, J.

The plaintiff James R. Hiles (Hiles) is rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church (St. Paul's), an Episcopal parish located in Brockton, and vicar of the Church of Our Savior, an Episcopal mission located in Milton. The defendants include the Bishop and Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Episcopal Diocese (Diocese), members of the Standing Committee of the Diocese (collectively, the Episcopal defendants), and Linda M. Hastie (Hastie). See note 2, supra.

The complaint sets out sixteen counts. The motion judge's order dismissed two counts on Hastie's motion to dismiss, allowed motions for summary judgment on twelve counts, and remanded two counts for further proceedings. Final judgment was entered under Mass.R.Civ.P. 54(b), 365 Mass. 821 (1974), on the two counts in which Hastie's motion to dismiss was allowed, and on twelve counts in which summary judgment(3) for the Episcopal defendants was allowed. Two counts were remanded to the District Court for further proceedings. The plaintiffs have appealed all adverse rulings except count IV (interference with contractual relationship). We reverse in part and affirm in part.

The complaint and the record before this court. We summarize the allegations in the complaint, as amplified by the affidavits and exhibits filed by the Episcopal defendants in support of their motion to dismiss, and by the plaintiffs in their opposition to the defendants' motions.(4)

In 1990, a parishioner bequeathed approximately $2 million to the Church of Our Saviour. The Episcopal Diocese and Hiles disagreed as to which entity was entitled to the bequest -- the church or the Diocese. On or about December 23, 1995, as a result of this disagreement, the Right Reverend M. Thomas Shaw, III, Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts (Shaw), summoned Hiles to his office, accused him of being stubborn, a bully, and a liar, and struck him with a "missile" (i.e., a pen).(5) Shaw threatened to remove Hiles from his position as vicar of the Church of Our Saviour. Hiles, apparently, was unyielding.(6)

The complaint continues with an account of additional events. Hiles, a married man, met the defendant Hastie (then unmarried) in the late 1960's. Hastie had accepted Hiles's invitation to perform certain work for the Church of Our Saviour. Her subsequent romantic advances to Hiles, it is alleged, were rejected.

Shortly prior to March 27, 1996, Hastie wrote a letter to the defendant Shaw accusing Hiles of having had an adulterous relationship with her that continued from the Spring of 1970 until the Fall of 1975, and stating that on December 4, 1975, she terminated a pregnancy, aborting the fetus fathered by Hiles. The complaint alleges that Hastie's letter "was the culmination of several prior contacts between her and employees of the Diocese in which these employees and agents urged her to write the letter. Defendants Shaw and the Diocese knew or reasonably should have known that the allegations contained in the letter were . . . false. Their entire purpose was to provide a reason for . . . Shaw to remove Hiles from his pastoral duties in the hopes that if he was removed, the Church of Our Savior would turn . . . over [the bequest] to the Diocese."

On March 27, 1996, the complaint continues, Shaw summoned Hiles to his office, read him the letter from Hastie, and presented Hiles with a document dated March 27, 1996, constituting notice that Shaw had issued a "Temporary Inhibition" against Hiles that recited the accusations of Hiles's sexual misconduct and instructed Hiles, inter alia, not to perform any functions as a priest, to remove all his personal effects from St. Paul's and the Church of Our Saviour. Further, he was thereafter forbidden to enter the property of either church and was required to "turn over" all funds of the two churches, together with an accounting. Finally, Hiles was not to discuss the matter with anyone other than his wife, legal counsel, and spiritual counsel.

On March 28, 1996, Shaw and the defendant Suffragan Bishop Barbara C. Harris (Harris) gave written notice to all the clergy in the Diocese -- alleged to be about 500 persons -- that Hiles "has been inhibited from exercising his priestly functions in the Diocese of Massachusetts due to formal charges of sexual misconduct." The notice to the clergy referred to the fact that "[t]he press has been informed."

A copy of the press release does not appear in the record. However, copies of the story appearing in the Boston Globe on March 30, 1996, in the Brockton Enterprise on the same date, and in the Milton Record-Transcript on April 5, 1996, were attached to the motion to dismiss filed by the Episcopal defendants and are included in the record. All three newspaper articles recite the charge against Hiles for "sexual misconduct," and his resulting suspension from his "priestly duties" or "priestly function."(7) The complaint alleges that "[t]his is the first time in the history of this diocese . . . that an [I]nhibition has not been kept entirely confidential pending a complete investigation and resolution of the complaint."

On April 24, 1996, the Standing Committee of the Diocese affirmed the Temporary Inhibition issued by Shaw, and on May 6, 1996, Hastie filed formal charges against Hiles with the Diocese.

On May 13, 1996, Hiles filed suit alleging counts of libel and slander against Hastie (count I); conspiracy against Hastie (count II); conspiracy against Shaw (count III); interference with contractual relations against Shaw (count IV); Federal and State civil rights violations against Shaw (counts V & VI); Federal and State civil rights violations against the Standing Committee (counts VII & VIII); conspiracy against Harris (count IX); conspiracy against the Diocese (count X); negligence against Shaw (count XI); negligence against Harris (count XII); slander against Shaw (count XIII); and assault and battery against Shaw (count XIV). Mrs. Hiles brought counts of loss of consortium (count XV), and intentional infliction of emotional distress (count XVI) against all defendants. Each count in the complaint incorporates all the historical factual allegations summarized above.

In support of their opposition to the defendants' motions to dismiss, Hiles and his wife filed affidavits dated August 27, 1996; Hiles stated under oath that the "allegations levelled against me by Linda M. Hastie are entirely false."

The defendants defend principally on the ground that this action is barred by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which precludes the jurisdiction of civil courts in ecclesiastical matters. To that end, pursuant to Mass.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1), (2), and (6), 365 Mass. 755 (1974), the Episcopal defendants, on September 3, 1996, filed a motion to dismiss all the counts against them.

The supplementary appendix filed by the Episcopal defendants includes the documents filed in support of their motion. Among the documents is the Presentment which, following issuance of the Temporary Inhibition, had been issued by the Ecclesiastical Trial Court of the Diocese charging Hiles with "1. Immorality," "2. Conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy," "3. Violation of the Canons of the 1994 General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church" by violating the confidentiality requirements of the Canons (see note 8, infra) through the filing of an action (i.e., this action) in the Middlesex Superior Court concerning the ecclesiastical charges against him prior to the Standing Committee's issuance of a Presentment, and "4. Violation of the Canons of the 1994 General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church" by filing this action "for the purpose of delaying and hindering" the disciplinary proceedings pending in the trial court of the Diocese.(8)

Paragraphs one and two of the Presentment were adopted by a vote of two-thirds of the members of the Standing Committee on July 16, 1996, and paragraphs three and four were similarly adopted on August 6, 1996.

On October 11, 1996, after deposing the two plaintiffs, Hastie filed a motion to dismiss all counts against her, citing Mass.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1), (2), and (6), and a motion for a protective order, see Mass.R.Civ.P. 26(c), as amended, 423 Mass. 1401 (1996), seeking to prevent discovery by the plaintiffs pending the resolution of Hastie's motion to dismiss. On October 22, 1996, the motion judge heard oral arguments on the motion to dismiss and allowed Hastie's motion for a protective order.

On April 7, 1997, the motion judge allowed Hastie's motion to dismiss as to both counts against her, allowed summary judgment for the Episcopal defendants as to counts III-XIII and count XVI, and denied summary judgment as to counts XIV and XV. The surviving assault and battery claim and the related loss of consortium claim filed by Mrs. Hiles were ordered remanded to the District Court.

Discussion. The rule regarding the exclusive jurisdiction of hierarchical religious organizations in religious matters is firmly embedded in the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The leading Federal case is Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 733 (1871) (civil court may not exercise jurisdiction over "a matter which concerns theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government, or the conformity...