Landis v. Campbell

• Decision Date: 31 October 1883
• Parties: LANDIS v. CAMPBELL et al., Appellants.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

79 Mo. 433

LANDIS

v.CAMPBELL et al., Appellants.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1883.

Appeal from Buchanan Circuit Court.--HON. J. P. GRUBB, Judge.

REVERSED.

B. F. Stringfellow and Judson & Motter for appellants.

Ramey & Brown and Woodson, Green & Burnes for respondent.

HENRY, J.

Plaintiff commenced this action in the circuit court of Buchanan county against defendants Campbell and Sanders and Thos. E. Tootle, to recover damages for an alleged libel, charged to have been published by them.

The petition alleged that plaintiff was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of St. Joseph, Missouri, and that defendants falsely, maliciously, etc., published of and concerning him, the libelous matter, consisting of a preamble, in which it was stated that plaintiff had made false and malicious statements concerning the pastor of that church, Campbell, and a resolution suspending plaintiff from the communion of the church. In a second count, omitting the formal parts, it was alleged that defendants published of and concerning plaintiff a certain other libel, consisting of the following: “You, meaning plaintiff, were by unaninous vote excommunicated.” “Resolved, That Israel Landis be excommunicated.”

Defendants filed separate answers, to the effect that defendant Campbell was pastor of said church, and that he and his co-defendants and other parties named, were pastor and ruling elders of said congregation, and composed a judicatory known as the church session, which, by the laws of the church, has jurisdiction to admonish, rebuke and excommunicate members of said church, found by them to be deserving of censure; that to this session defendant Campbell reported that plaintiff had made false and defamatory statements in regard to Campbell; that the session, at a regular meeting, in the performance of its duty in the regular administration of church discipline and according to the usages and practices of the church, without any malice toward plaintiff, and believing it within the scope of official duty, having found plaintiff deserving of censure, adopted said preamble and resolutions, which were entered upon its record book. It is also alleged that there was another judicatory of said church, known as the presbytery, to which plaintiff had a right to appeal from the decision of the session, but that, although notified of his suspension, he failed to prosecute an appeal. The same is in substance the answer to the second count, and the several answers of the other defendants do not differ materially from that of Campbell in the points which we shall consider.

It appears from the evidence that plaintiff had no notice that charges would be or had been made against him to the session, nor was he present at the investigation. The evidence was conflicting on the question of veracity between plaintiff and the pastor, and we refrain from expressing an opinion as to the weight of evidence.

What plaintiff relied upon as a publication of the alleged libel mentioned in the first count, was a reading of the same from a copy by the pastor to the congregation, the entering the same on the session minutes and exhibiting them to the members of the session, by its clerk, to get their signatures to them. What plaintiff insists was a publication of the alleged libel in the second count, was the adoption of the same by the session, recording it upon its minute book, the oral announcement of the expulsion of plaintiff by the pastor to the congregation, a written copy of the proceedings furnished to plaintiff by Sanders as clerk of the session, and the exhibition of the proceedings to McDonald and Hulett, members of the session, in order to procure their signatures to the same.

There was a mass of evidence read to the jury, consisting of extracts from the constitution of the church and digests of its laws, and adjudications thereon, in relation to the judicatories of the church, which the court left it to the jury to expound for themselves. If the civil courts take it upon themselves to administer the law of a church their duty is to inform the jury what it is, and not to leave them to grope through the judicial literature of the church to ascertain it.

The main objection to the action of the session is its proceeding to investigate the charges against plaintiff, in his absence, without notice to him; and the court, in the instructions to the jury, adopted the view that this irregularity rendered the action of the session void, and that, therefore, it afforded defendants no defense to this suit and obviated the necessity of proving express malice against defendants. The court, among others, gave the following instructions at plaintiff's instance:

5. If the jury believe from the evidence that the session of the First Presbyterian Church convened on the 31st day of October, 1877, had no right, under the constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, to suspend Israel Landis, the plaintiff, from the communion of said church, and adopt a preamble alleging that he had been guilty of malicious falsehood, without giving said Landis any notice that they intended to proceed against him as a member of the First Presbyterian Church in St. Joseph, for any violation of the constitution or discipline of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and that defendants, in conjunction with other members of the session of the First Presbyterian Church, did adopt a preamble and resolutions finding that said Israel Landis had been guilty of malicious falsehood, and suspending him from communion with said church, and all without notice to said Landis: and that said session of said church, on the 31st day of October, 1877, in conjunction with the defendants, agreed that the alleged libel set out in the first count of plaintiff's petition, should be read at a public meeting on the following Friday evening by the defendant Campbell, and that said alleged libel was read by the direction of said defendants; then the fact that defendants claim to have been acting in an official ecclesiastical capacity, furnishes no excuse for such publication.

10. If the jury believe from the evidence that the paper writing set forth in the second count of the plaintiff's petition was the result of a concerted writing and agreement of and between the members of the session in proof, including the defendants, and that it was a part of said agreement that it should be read or announced publicly in the church, and that the same was so announced, and that the said paper writing was by the defendants, or either of them, with the consent or direction of the other, shown or read to any one, then such acts were sufficient publication of said paper writing by defendants.

1. DECISIONS OF CHURCH JUDICATORIES: constitutional law.

The civil courts cannot review the decisions of ecclesiastical judicatories in matters properly within their province under the constitution and laws or regulations of the church. Harmon v. Dreher, 1 Speers Eq. 87; Robertson v. Bullions, 9 Barb. 134; Shannon v. Frost, 3 B. Mon. 261; German Reformed Church v. Seibert, 3 Barr (Pa.) 282; State ex rel. v. Farris, 45 Mo. 183; Watson v. Garvin, 54 Mo. 364. In Shannon v. Frost, the court said: “Whether right or wrong, the act of excommunication must, as to the fact of membership, be law to this court. * * We cannot decide whether the excommunicated have been justly or unjustly, regularly or irregularly, cut...