Dismissal of religious teacher upheld

Dismissal of religious teacher upheld

New Jersey Supreme Court rules for the Rosenbaum Yeshiva

Laura Wolk Slavis
Laura Wolk Slavis

Last week, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously held that a court can’t adjudicate a defamation claim made by certain employees of a religious organization against the organization if adjudicating it would require the court to weigh competing religious visions, or if it would interfere with the organization’s choice of who carries out its religious mission or with its supervision or control of employees whose job involves carrying out that mission.

The ruling expanded the application of an existing legal doctrine called the ministerial exception. That doctrine bars employment discrimination claims against religious organizations by employees who are considered ministers. For purposes of this rule, the term minister does not mean specifically an ordained minister, but an employee whose role involves conveying the organization’s religious message or carrying out its religious mission.

Courts have held that this term applies to employees including rabbis, ministers, and religious studies teachers.

The United States Supreme Court has explained that the ministerial exception is necessary to ensure the First Amendment right to freedom of religion. The First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The exception protects free exercise by ensuring that religious organizations are free to choose, control, and supervise the employees who carry out their religious mission without government interference. And it prevents an establishment of religion, since an attempt by a court to influence these matters would, in and of itself, constitute an establishment of religion.

In this case, Hyman vs. Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey, the New Jersey Supreme Court extended the ministerial exception to apply to defamation claims brought by a Judaic studies teacher who had been dismissed by the school. The Rosenbaum Yeshiva, an elementary and middle school in River Edge, had sent an email to its parent body and faculty members in 2019, explaining that as a result of an independent investigation by a law firm, “it was determined that [the teacher’s] conduct had been neither acceptable nor consistent with how a rebbe in our Yeshiva should interact with students.” The letter continued, “[i]n consultation with counsel and halachic advisors, the leadership of the Yeshiva has terminated his employment.”

After the school sent the letter, the teacher, Rabbi Shlomo Hyman, sued for defamation in the Superior Court in Bergen County. He conceded that he qualified as a “minister” for purposes of the ministerial exception doctrine but argued that the doctrine prohibited only employment discrimination claims, not defamation claims. The Superior Court dismissed the case on the theory that if the claims were allowed to proceed to trial, “they would entangle the court in matters of religious doctrine” and violate the First Amendment.

On appeal, the Appellate Division affirmed the decision, and the teacher appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court.

In last week’s decision, the court expanded the ministerial exception to include tort claims, such as defamation. But the ruling doesn’t prohibit all tort claims. It only bars a claim if adjudicating it would violate the religious organization’s First Amendment rights.

In a 2002 case, McKelvey v. Pierce, the New Jersey Supreme Court had set out a standard for determining whether a given claim is barred by the ministerial exception. That case involved several contract and tort claims, and the standard required a court to assess each element and decide whether the court’s adjudication of the claim would require it “to choose between competing religious visions, or cause interference with a church’s administrative prerogatives, including its core right to select, and govern the duties of, its ministers.”

In last week’s decision, the court unanimously agreed that the test set out in McKelvey was the applicable standard for determining whether a particular claim is barred by the ministerial exception.

The judges did disagree on how to apply this standard to the facts of the case. Three of the six judges on the court found that the ministerial exception applied to bar the teacher’s defamation claim against Rosenbaum Yeshiva. For a statement or letter to constitute defamation, it has to be not only defamatory but also false. These three judges reasoned that a court could not determine whether the letter was false because the assertion that the teacher’s conduct had not been acceptable or consistent with how a rabbi in the school should interact with students “is inextricably intertwined with the Jewish law that governs the Yeshiva’s operations” and such a determination would require “assessing and attempting to apply that religious law” and “impermissibly interfere with the Yeshiva’s prerogative to choose and manage its ministers.”

The three remaining judges argued that in fact a court could investigate the veracity of the letter without implicating Jewish law by investigating whether the alleged conduct occurred at all, rather than whether the alleged conduct was acceptable for a rabbi in the school. Because the court was evenly split on whether the claim was barred by the ministerial exception, the Appellate Division’s dismissal of the case stood.

Akiva Shapiro, a partner at Gibson Dunn, represented the Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey. “Today is a very good day for religious liberty,” Mr. Shapiro said. “The court unanimously adopted a flexible and protective standard for evaluating employment-related tort claims brought against religious institutions, and its specific holding will provide those institutions with important legal protections in communicating with their faith communities without fear of groundless defamation claims.”

Laura Wolk Slavis, counsel at Becket, a public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions, represented a number of religious organizations that submitted an amicus brief in the case.

“This is a very important issue because religious schools need to be free to make these types of sensitive decisions about their internal governance without any type of interference,” Ms. Wolk Slavis said. “Judges have no business picking Jewish rabbis or Orthodox priests. The court’s ruling reinforces that common-sense principle and allows Rosenbaum Yeshiva to choose who passes on its Jewish beliefs to the next generation.”

And it’s important for a religious organization “to be able to explain to its faith community why it let a minister go,” Ms. Wolk Slavis continued. “The way that a school describes its reason for terminating an employee is part of the supervision and control that attaches to the ministerial exception.” The decision in this case “encourages transparency and open discussion. When a school makes a judgment that says part of terminating this person includes notification to the community, that judgment is part of the same decision about how to control and supervise him. The two cannot be separated. You can’t separate the letter from the decision to part ways with him because they are both flowing from the same decision.”

Religious entities often “feel religiously compelled to disclose these facts and to be transparent and to make sure that these types of violations are known,” she added. “Many of them, when they make these decisions, are being motivated by their faith to inform, and in the precise way that the information is presented, and to whom. I think it is very often the case that these communities feel that they must do this according to their faith doctrine.”

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