Taylor v. Evangelical Covenant Church

2022 IL App (1st) 210524No. 1-21-0524
Opinion filed January 12, 2022
Third Division
______________________________________________________________________________
IN THE
APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS
FIRST DISTRICT
______________________________________________________________________________
NEIL TAYLOR, ) Appeal from the
) Circuit Court of
Plaintiff-Appellant, ) Cook County.
)
v. ) No. 20 L 2176
)
THE EVANGELICAL COVENANT CHURCH, ) Honorable
) Thomas R. Mulroy,
Defendant-Appellee. ) Judge, presiding.
JUSTICE BURKE delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
Justices McBride and Ellis concurred in the judgment and opinion.
OPINION
¶1 Plaintiff, Neil Taylor, sued defendant Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), alleging that
he lost his position as pastor of a congregation named Jesus People USA due to defendant’s slow
and careless investigation of an accusation of sexual assault against him. The circuit court
dismissed his complaint pursuant to finding that (1) the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine and the
ministerial exception barred his claims for breach of contract and intentional interference with
economic advantage and (2) he failed to adequately state those claims. On appeal, plaintiff argues
that the circuit court’s dismissal of his complaint was in error. We affirm.
No. 1-21-0524
¶2 I. BACKGROUND
¶3 Defendant ECC credentialed plaintiff as a pastor in 1989 and ordained him 15 years later
in 2004. Plaintiff served as the pastor of a congregation named Jesus People USA, which is a
member church of defendant ECC. 1
¶4 In January 2017, an individual whom plaintiff and his spouse cared for as a child accused
plaintiff of sexual assault during the 1970s. Plaintiff informed defendant ECC of these
allegations. In early June 2017, defendant ECC informed plaintiff that he was suspended and not
allowed to preach, teach, or attend church. Plaintiff’s suspension forced Jesus People USA to
find and employ a different pastor. In late June 2017, plaintiff met with defendant’s Board of
Ordered Ministry at the church’s annual meeting to discuss the allegations against him. After this
meeting, defendant upheld plaintiff’s suspension. Throughout the remainder of 2017, plaintiff
frequently contacted defendant “to inquire as to the status and progress of the investigation and
when he could expect his suspension to be lifted.” Defendant did not respond.
¶5 In April 2018, defendant asked plaintiff for permission to contact his accuser. In June
2018, plaintiff again met with the Board of Ordered Ministry at the church’s annual meeting.
Defendant “acknowledged that the accusations that had been made against [plaintiff] were
malicious and that the investigation had been carelessly handled.” Defendant’s executive
director, Richard Lucco, wrote to plaintiff, stating that defendant lacked “care and due process”
1
Plaintiff’s complaint appears to allege that he was an employee of both defendant ECC and Jesus
People USA. He alleges that he had “employment with Jesus People USA” and that he “commenced and
continued working for Defendants [sic].” ECC is the only defendant in this case. Plaintiff also alleges that
he was “an employee in good standing and had, within the meaning of employment law, a contractual
relationship with both defendant and its affiliated organization[ ] Jesus People USA.” However, plaintiff’s
brief states that “it is undisputed that [plaintiff] was not an employee of ECC, but rather of the
congregation at which he served.”
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No. 1-21-0524
when investigating the allegations against plaintiff. Defendant lifted plaintiff’s suspension on
June 27, 2018. Nevertheless, Jesus People USA “declined to reinstate [plaintiff] under the same
terms and conditions of his previous employment.” As of 2020, plaintiff was still “not serving in
a pastoral position.”
¶6 Defendant’s bylaws, which are attached to plaintiff’s complaint and part of the record on
appeal, provide that the annual meeting is “the highest deliberative and decision-making body
of” the church, and that “[t]here shall be one regular session of the Annual Meeting each year.”
The Board of Ordered Ministry, which reports to the annual meeting, “has general supervision
over all ordained and licensed ministers *** including their ordination, license, commission,
consecration, standing, and discipline, and the maintenance of high standards in their ministry.”
Defendant’s Rules for the Ordered Ministry provide that a “minister *** may be charged with
indiscretion, immorality, doctrinal error, unethical behavior, or disloyalty to [defendant].” The
investigation of such charges
“shall be initiated by the executive minister of the ordered ministry and the president of
the ECC in consultation with the conference superintendent, the regional director, or the
executive minister of [S]erve [G]lobally. These leaders shall then confer and determine
the order of responsibility in pursuing the matter. They may refer the issue to the regional
committee on ministerial standing or to the Board. Upon referral of charges to the Board,
it shall assume responsibility to ascertain the validity of such charges and take
appropriate action.”
“A minister *** may be disciplined by the board” by “[t]emporary suspension of ministerial or
missionary credentials and removal from ministerial functions, while charges are being
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investigated.” Similarly, “[i]n the case of a serious offense, a minister or missionary’s credentials
may be temporarily suspended…..After investigation, the Board shall determine the kind of
discipline required.”
¶7 In 2020, plaintiff sued defendant. His first amended complaint alleged the facts set out
above and counts of breach of contract and intentional interference with economic advantage.
The breach of contract count alleged that defendant’s bylaws constituted a contract between the
parties. Defendant breached that contract because, when it “completed its investigation and
found no basis for the charges nor any basis for discipline, plaintiff should have been returned to
his parish and prior position under the same terms as his previous employment.” The intentional
interference count alleged that, “[i]n conducting an unreasonably slow and ineffective
investigation of allegations against plaintiff, and in keeping plaintiff in a suspended status for an
unreasonably lengthy period of time, [d]efendant intentionally and maliciously interfered with
plaintiff’s economic expectancy and caused a breach of his employment with defendant and
Jesus People USA.”
¶8 Defendant filed a motion to dismiss plaintiff’s first amended complaint pursuant to
section 2-615 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-615 (West 2020)). Defendant
argued that, under the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine and the ministerial exception, the court
did not have jurisdiction “to determine whether or how [defendant] followed its own rules of
ministerial investigation and discipline.” Defendant also argued that plaintiff failed to state
claims for breach of contract and intentional interference with economic advantage. In response,
plaintiff argued that the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine did not bar his claims because the court
could resolve them by applying neutral principles of law to determine whether defendant
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No. 1-21-0524
violated its own rules and bylaws. Plaintiff also contended that he adequately stated claims of
breach of contract and intentional interference with economic advantage.
¶9 On April 15, 2021, the circuit court granted defendant’s motion and dismissed the first
amended complaint “in entirety with prejudice for the reasons stated in [defendant’s] Motion to
Dismiss.” (Emphasis in original.) The record does not reflect the court’s reasoning further. 2
¶ 10 Plaintiff timely appealed.
¶ 11 II. ANALYSIS
¶ 12 On appeal, plaintiff argues that the circuit court erred in granting defendant’s motion to
dismiss. A section 2-615 motion challenges the legal sufficiency of a complaint based on defects
apparent on its face. Marshall v. Burger King Corp., 222 Ill. 2d 422, 429 (2006). We construe
the complaint’s allegations in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, accept as true all well-
pleaded facts, and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Id. Dismissal is only
appropriate if it is “clearly apparent that no set of facts can be proved that would entitle the
plaintiff to recovery.” Rehfield v. Diocese of Joliet, 2021 IL 125656, ¶ 20 (not yet released for
publication and subject to revision or withdrawal). Our review is de novo (id. ¶ 23), meaning that
we perform the same analysis that the trial court would perform (Khan v. Fur Keeps Animal
Rescue, Inc., 2021 IL App (1st) 182694, ¶ 25 (not yet released for publication and subject to
revision or withdrawal)).
2
No reports of proceedings are included in the record on appeal. However, reports of proceedings
are not necessary for effective appellate review because, under the de novo standard, we review the circuit
court’s judgment, not the reasons for its judgment. See Makowski v. City of Naperville, 249 Ill. App. 3d
110, 115 (1993).
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¶ 13 Defendant’s motion to dismiss asserted as grounds for dismissal both the ecclesiastical
abstention doctrine and the ministerial exception. Both doctrines are rooted in the first
amendment to the United States Constitution, which applies to the states through the fourteenth
amendment. Rehfield, 2021 IL 125656, ¶ 36. The first amendment provides that “Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
***.” U.S. Const., amend. I. If either the ecclesiastical abstention or the ministerial exception
applies to plaintiff’s claims, we must affirm the circuit court’s dismissal of his complaint. See
Rehfield, 2021 IL 125656, ¶ 37.
¶ 14 “The ecclesiastical abstention doctrine provides that ‘civil courts may not determine the
correctness of interpretations of canonical text or some decisions relating to government of the
religious polity; rather, court must accept as given whatever the religious entity decides.’ ” Id.
¶ 39 (quoting Duncan v. Peterson, 408 Ill. App. 3d 911, 915 (2010)). That is,
“ ‘where resolution of [a] dispute[ ] cannot be made without extensive inquiry by civil
courts into religious law and polity, the First and Fourteenth Amendments mandate that
civil courts shall not disturb the decisions of the highest ecclesiastical tribunal within a
church of a hierarchical polity, but must accept such decisions as binding on them.’ ” Id.
¶ 42 (quoting Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for the United States of America &
Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 709 (1976)).
¶ 15 However, ecclesiastical abstention is not an absolute bar to courts deciding disputes
involving religious organizations. Id. ¶ 43. Where neutral, objective, and well-established
principles of law familiar to lawyers and judges can be applied and there is no danger of
“ ‘entanglement in questions of religious doctrine, polity, and practice,’ ” the first amendment
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does not bar a civil court from resolving the case. Id. (quoting Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 603
(1979)). Under this “neutral principles of law” approach, a court “may examine pertinent
charters, constitutions, bylaws, deeds, state statutes, and any other evidence to resolve the dispute
in the same way it would a secular dispute.” Id.¶ 16 First, we must determine the subject of this dispute. If it involves matters of discipline,
faith, internal organization, or ecclesiastical rule or law, then abstention is required regardless of
whether neutral principles or law could adjudicate the matter. See Bruss v. Przybylo, 385 Ill.
App. 3d 399, 421-22 (2008). If the dispute does not involve one of these subjects, then the circuit
court may hear the case only if the issues can be determined using neutral principles of law
without interfering with matters of church discipline, faith, internal organization, or ecclesiastical
rule, custom, or law. Stepek v. Doe, 392 Ill. App. 3d 739, 755 (2009); St. Mark Coptic Orthodox
Church v. Tanios, 213 Ill. App. 3d 700, 714 (1991).
¶ 17 There is no dispute that defendant is a church and that its rules and bylaws applied to
plaintiff as an ordained minister. The essence of plaintiff’s complaint is that defendant’s internal
investigation of his alleged sexual misconduct was unreasonably slow and unfair and that he was
not returned to Jesus People USA once his suspension was lifted. Plaintiff self-reported the
allegations of sexual misconduct to defendant and met with defendant’s Board of Ordained
Ministry twice at the church’s annual meetings to discuss those allegations. The Board
suspended plaintiff, investigated the allegations against him between the 2017 and 2018 annual
meetings, and then lifted his suspension. According to defendant’s rules, the Board of Ordained
Ministry had the exclusive power to investigate charges against plaintiff and take appropriate
action once those charges were referred to the Board.
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¶ 18 Even viewed in the light most favorable to him, plaintiff’s claims arise from a wholly
internal investigation and suspension conducted by his church. Plaintiff’s claims are inexorably
intertwined with defendant’s investigation as to whether he was fit to serve as a pastor, given the
accusation of sexual misconduct against him. That is, the substance of plaintiff’s complaint
relates to internal matters of church governance and discipline. Ecclesiastical abstention is
required because this case necessarily involves matters of internal discipline. See Bruss, 385 Ill.
App. 3d at 426. It is irrelevant whether the dispute could be resolved by a court’s interpretation
of defendant’s bylaws because, no matter how egregiously defendant may have departed from
proper investigatory procedures, the subject matter of the dispute makes abstention compulsory.
See id. at 422.
¶ 19 We recognize that the charge of sexual misconduct against plaintiff concerned events that
allegedly occurred before he became a pastor. However, public policy favors religious
organizations taking allegations of sexual abuse against their clergy seriously and investigating
them thoroughly, regardless of when the alleged abuse occurred. Moreover, different religious
organizations may have different views regarding what constitutes fitness to serve as clergy. We
cannot review such decisions without violating the first amendment by approving some views
and rejecting others. Thus, because plaintiff’s complaint directly challenged defendant’s internal
investigative and disciplinary procedures, the circuit court lacked jurisdiction and properly
dismissed the case.
¶ 20 Plaintiff acknowledges that churches have an unfettered right “to establish their own rules
and regulations for internal discipline and government” (Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 724), but
argues “that, once a religious entity does establish such rules and regulations, it is bound by
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them.” (Emphasis in original.) Essentially, plaintiff argues that we can use neutral principles of
law to determine whether defendant followed its own rules and bylaws in investigating and
suspending him. It is true that, in some circumstances, “a civil court may exercise jurisdiction to
decide whether [a] church has violated its bylaws.” Jackson v. Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist
Church Deacon Board, 2016 IL App (1st) 143045, ¶ 52.
¶ 21 In Jackson, the plaintiff pastor sued his former church, alleging breach of contract. Id.
¶ 5. Specifically, the plaintiff claimed that the church failed to follow four steps required by its
bylaws before terminating him: (1) providing a written notice of dissatisfaction, (2) holding a
special meeting, (3) providing notice of a vote to the members, and (4) having a proper
membership vote. Id. ¶ 54. After a bench trial, the trial court found that the defendant church did
not violate its bylaws. Id. ¶ 2. On appeal, this court held that jurisdiction was proper to review
plaintiff’s claims because we did not need to inquire into any religious doctrines and could
address the issues by applying neutral principles of civil law to the church’s bylaws. Id. ¶ 53. We
affirmed, concluding that the defendant church did not violate its bylaws. Id. ¶ 78.
¶ 22 Jackson is distinguishable because the plaintiff’s complaint identified four specific ways
in which the defendant church violated its bylaws pertaining to termination of pastors. That is,
the Jackson court only had to determine whether the defendant church took the steps required by
its bylaws before terminating the plaintiff. By contrast, in this case, plaintiff’s complaint does not
identify specific rules or bylaws that defendant allegedly violated. Rather, plaintiff alleges that
defendant’s investigation was “carelessly handled,” featured a “lack of care and due process,”
and was “unreasonably slow and ineffective” and that defendant “inadequately handled the
investigation *** by not using proper efficiency, care and effort to conclude its investigation.”
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Defendant’s bylaws and rules attached to plaintiff’s complaint specify no timeframe for
investigations into pastor misconduct and no standard of care for such investigations; nor do they
require the return of plaintiff to his former congregation upon completion of the investigation.
We cannot apply neutral principles to bylaws that are silent on such matters. To resolve
plaintiff’s claims, we would have to make a “searching and therefore impermissible inquiry” into
defendant’s internal investigation of plaintiff (see Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 723) and make
subjective judgments about whether that investigation was timely and fair. The first amendment
prohibits us from doing so.
¶ 23 Plaintiff also cites Jenkins v. Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, 356 Ill. App. 3d 504(2005), as “highly analogous” because “[defendant]’s actions caused the cessation of [plaintiff]’s
compensation and benefits.” However, Jenkins involved allegations that a pastor’s former church
breached an agreement to pay his salary and benefits for the remainder of the year in which he
resigned due to accusations of sexual misconduct. Id. at 507. Plaintiff does not allege that
defendant refused to pay him salary and benefits; rather, he claims that defendant’s investigation
of him was untimely and unfair. Jenkins is inapposite. Accordingly, we find that ecclesiastical
abstention bars to plaintiff’s claims, and the circuit court properly dismissed them.
¶ 24 This opinion does not give any support or credence to the position that church
investigative bodies are immune from the mandatory reporting statutes or that their procedures
and findings are exempt from disclosure subject to subpoena. When an investigative body of a
church breaches into the area of law governed by criminal or civil liability, the resulting findings
and procedures are not exempt from disclosure. This case is limited to the issue of whether the
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plaintiff overcame the ecclesiastical privilege to establish a breach of contract or intentional
interference with economic advantage claim. He did not.
¶ 25 Because we find that the first amendment bars secular adjudication of plaintiff’s claims,
we need not address whether he adequately stated claims for breach of contract and intentional
interference with economic advantage.
¶ 26 III. CONCLUSION
¶ 27 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court of Cook County.
¶ 28 Affirmed.
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No. 1-21-0524
Cite as: Taylor v. Evangelical Covenant Church, 2022 IL App
(1st) 210524Decision Under Review: Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County, No. 20-L-2176;
the Hon. Thomas R. Mulroy, Judge, presiding.
Attorneys Richard J. Gonzalez, Law Offices of Chicago-Kent College of
for Law, of Chicago, for appellant.
Appellant:
Attorneys Susan Miller Overbey and Robin L. Mohr, of Burke, Warren,
for MacKay & Serritella, P.C., of Chicago, for appellee.
Appellee:
Amicus Curiae: James C. Geoly, of Chicago, for amicus curiae Catholic
Conference of Illinois.
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