Kelley v. Decatur Baptist Church

Filing 31

MEMORANDUM OPINION and ORDER; The Court DENIES Defendant Decatur Baptist's Motion to Dismiss Complaint; The Court ORDERS Decatur Baptist to file its Answer to the Complaint within 14 days of notice of this order. Signed by Magistrate Judge Herman N Johnson, Jr on 05/01/18. (SPT)

FILED
2018 May-01 PM 04:14
U.S. DISTRICT COURT
N.D. OF ALABAMA

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA
NORTHEASTERN DIVISION
ALEXANDRIA KELLEY
Plaintiff,
v.
DECATUR BAPTIST CHURCH
Defendant.

}
}
}
}
} CASE NO. 5:17-CV-1239-HNJ
}
}
}
}

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
This Title VII action for pregnancy discrimination action proceeds before the
court on Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss Complaint. (Doc. 5). In its Motion, the
Defendant argues the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine and ministerial exception bars
prosecution of Plaintiff’s claim.

Based upon the following analysis, the court

determines that factual disputes preclude dismissal of Plaintiff’s claim pursuant to the
doctrines pursued by the Defendant. Therefore, the court DENIES Defendant’s
Motion to Dismiss Complaint.
BACKGROUND
The Complaint’s well-pleaded factual allegations provide as follows. Defendant
Decatur Baptist Church employed Plaintiff Alexandria Kelley as a maintenance and
child care employee from March 17, 2015, to August 27, 2015. (Doc. 1 at ¶¶ 6-7).
Kelley notified her employer at some point during the summer of 2015 that she was

pregnant. (Id. at ¶ 9). Danny Holmes, a pastor at Decatur Baptist, became aware
Kelley was pregnant, and subsequently Decatur Baptist terminated Kelley’s
employment on August 27, 2015. (Id. at ¶ 10). Decatur Baptist informed Kelley that
it terminated her because of the pregnancy. (Id. at ¶ 11).
In an affidavit attached to Decatur Baptist’s Motion, Holmes asserts that he
discharged Kelley because she engaged in sexual conduct outside of marriage – which
violates biblical standards – and she sowed discord among the daycare workers. (Doc.
5-2 at ¶¶ 5-7). An affidavit by Mindy Monroe, Decatur Baptist Church Daycare
Director, corroborates Holmes’s assertions. (Id. at ¶ 4).
Kelley filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
alleging pregnancy discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e(k), 2000e–2(a)(1)–(2). The EEOC issued a determination
on February 10, 2017, that Decatur Baptist discharged Kelley because of her
pregnancy. (Doc. 1 at ¶ 12; Doc. 9-1).
ANALYSIS
A.

Disputed Issues of Fact Preclude the Court from Adjudicating the
Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine’s Applicability to Kelley’s
Claim

In its Motion to Dismiss, Decatur Baptist argues that the court lacks subject
matter jurisdiction to adjudicate this dispute because assessing the discharge decision
involves review of religious doctrine, an exercise which violates the ecclesiastical
abstention doctrine. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), the court
2

determines that a factual dispute precludes dispositive application of the doctrine at
this juncture.
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. Among the doctrines established under the foregoing clauses’ purview, the
ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, also known as the church autonomy doctrine,
requires “civil courts to abstain from deciding issues connected to ‘theological
controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government, or conformity of members
of the church to the standard of morals required of them.’” Myhre v. Seventh-Day
Adventist Church Reform Movement Am. Union Int'l Missionary Soc’y, No. 15-13755, 2018
WL 258782, at *2 (11th Cir. Jan. 2, 2018) (quoting Crowder v. S. Baptist Convention, 828
F.2d 718, 722 (11th Cir. 1987)) (citing Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 13 Wall. 679, 733 (1871));
Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 723 (1976); Simpson v. Wells
Lamont Corp., 494 F.2d 490, 493–94 (5th Cir. 1974) 1). In such disputes, civil courts
risk, one, abridging the free exercise of religion by affecting religious conduct, and,
two, “establishing” a religion by enforcing “a particular religious faction.” Myhre, 2018
WL 258782 at *2 (citing Crowder, 828 F.2d at 721).
The First Amendment does not entirely exempt decisions by religious
organizations from adjudication, as civil courts “may apply neutral principles of law to
See Bonner v. Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc) (adopting as binding precedent
in the Eleventh Circuit, all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit announced prior to October 1,
1981).
1

3

decide church disputes that ‘involve no consideration of doctrinal matters.’” Myhre,
2018 WL 258782 at *2 (quoting Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595 (1979)). However, when a
matter does not present a proper occasion for the application of neutral principles, a
“dispute involving the application of church doctrine and procedure to discipline one
of its members is not appropriate for secular adjudication.” Myhre, 2018 WL 258782
at *2 (citing Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 723; Crowder, 828 F.2d at 726). Therefore, “civil
courts may not use the guise of the ‘neutral principles’ approach” to determine
matters of religious doctrine, polity, governance, etc. Crowder, 828 F.2d at 725.
Most critically at this juncture, the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine incites the
subject matter jurisdiction of the court to adjudicate Kelley’s claim. Myhre, 2018 WL
258782 at *2 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1)); see also Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 713-14
(“‘civil courts exercise no jurisdiction’” “‘where a subject-matter of dispute’”
“‘concerns theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government, or
the conformity of the members of the church to the standard of morals required of
them’”) (quoting Watson, 13 Wall. at 733-734).
In pertinent respects, the Eleventh Circuit establishes particular modes of
review for Rule 12(b)(1) challenges to subject matter jurisdiction:
[A] motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to
Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) can be based upon either a facial or factual
challenge to the complaint. If the challenge is facial, the plaintiff is left
with safeguards similar to those retained when a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to
dismiss for failure to state a claim is raised. . . . Accordingly, the court
must consider the allegations in the plaintiff’s complaint as true. . . . A
facial attack on the complaint requires the court merely to look and see if
4

the plaintiff has sufficiently alleged a basis of subject matter jurisdiction,
and the allegations in his complaint are taken as true for the purposes of
the motion. . . . Factual attacks, on the other hand, challenge the
existence of subject matter jurisdiction in fact, irrespective of the
pleadings, and matters outside the pleadings, such as testimony and
affidavits are considered. Furthermore, . . . the district court has the
power to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on any of three
separate bases: (1) the complaint alone; (2) the complaint supplemented
by undisputed facts evidenced in the record; or (3) the complaint
supplemented by undisputed facts plus the court’s resolution of disputed
facts.
McElmurray v. Consol. Gov’t of Augusta-Richmond Cty., 501 F.3d 1244, 1251 (11th Cir.
2007) (citing, inter alia, Williamson v. Tucker, 645 F.2d 404, 412 (5th Cir. 1981); Lawrence
v. Dunbar, 919 F.2d 1525, 1529 (11th Cir. 1990)) (internal quotation marks and
alterations omitted). Importantly, when a subject matter jurisdiction issue involves “a
factual challenge[,] the district court must give the plaintiff an opportunity for discovery
and for a hearing that is appropriate to the nature of the motion to dismiss.”
McElmurray, 501 F.3d at 1251 (citing Williamson, 645 F.2d at 414) (emphasis in
original); see also id. at 414 (“a judge may be required to hear oral testimony where the
facts are complicated and testimony would be helpful”).
Based upon the foregoing exposition, the court cannot properly adjudicate
Decatur Baptist’s Rule 12(b)(1) motion at this time. As the Background reveals, the
parties present diametrically opposed renderings of the most important event at issue:
Kelley avers that Holmes discharged her because she was pregnant, and Decatur
Baptist contends that Holmes discharged her because she violated religious tenets. If
Decatur Baptist declares truthfully the reasons for Kelley’s discharge, then the
5

ecclesiastical abstention doctrine applies to bar Kelley’s action; otherwise, its
assertions constitute pretext buttressing Kelley’s pregnancy discrimination claim. C.f.,
Ohio Civil Rights Comm’n v. Dayton Christian Sch., Inc., 477 U.S. 619, 628 (1986) (“the
[court] violates no constitutional rights by merely investigating the circumstances of
[plaintiff’s] discharge in this case, if only to ascertain whether the ascribed religiousbased reason was in fact the reason for the discharge”).
Kelley argues that the ministerial exception defense represents the proper basis
for applying First Amendment concerns to her claim; therefore, she concludes the
ecclesiastical abstention doctrine does not apply to her Title VII claim. However, the
court heeds the authoritative guidance of the Eleventh Circuit, when it recently
applied the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine to claims for breach of contract and
implied covenants, fraud, conversion, conspiracy, and contractual interference,
stemming from a church’s cancellation of a former employee’s retirement benefits.
Myhre, 2018 WL 258782 at *2.
Furthermore, although the religious freedom doctrines originate from the same
First Amendment concerns, they do not completely overlap. As the next section’s
analysis portrays, the ministerial exception defense applies to any religious authority’s
decision regarding a minister, regardless of the reasons undertaken for the decision.
See Hosanna–Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171, 194–95
(2012) (“The purpose of the [ministerial] exception is not to safeguard a church’s
decision to fire a minister only when it is made for a religious reason. The exception
6

instead ensures that the authority to select and control who will minister to the
faithful . . . is the church’s alone” because it is “a matter ‘strictly ecclesiastical.’”)
(citations omitted). The ecclesiastical abstention doctrine only applies to decisions
regarding religious doctrine, theology, tenets of faith, etc., matters which extend
beyond decisions regarding the employment of ministers. In the absence of any
clearer precedent, the court declines to prohibit Decatur Baptist from relying upon
the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine at the appropriate stage of this case.
As the Eleventh Circuit requires, the factual challenge at bar compels the court
to afford Kelley an opportunity to conduct discovery on the disputed issues and
present her contentions at a hearing. Therefore, the court will deny Decatur Baptist’s
Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
B.

Fact Issues Preclude Rule 12(b)(6) Dismissal of the
Pregnancy Discrimination Claim on the Basis of the
Ministerial Exception

Decatur Baptist contends Kelley was a minister, and thus, the ministerial
exception forbids the court’s review of the discharge decision. As the following
analysis portrays, the face of Kelley’s complaint does not portray Decatur Baptist
prevails on its affirmative defense. Therefore, Decatur Baptist’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion
regarding the ministerial exception does not command dismissal at this stage of the
case.

7

1.

Standard Of Review

Rule 12(b)(6), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, permits a court to dismiss a
complaint if it fails to state a claim for which relief may be granted. In Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
556 U.S. 662 (2009), the Court revisited the applicable standard governing Rule
12(b)(6) motions to dismiss. First, courts must take note of the elements a plaintiff
must plead to state the applicable claims at issue. Id. at 675.
After establishing the elements of the claim at issue, the court identifies all wellpleaded, non-conclusory factual allegations in the complaint and assumes their
veracity. Id. at 679. Well-pleaded factual allegations do not encompass mere “labels
and conclusions,” legal conclusions, conclusory statements, or formulaic recitations
and threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action. Id. at 678 (citations
omitted). In evaluating the sufficiency of a plaintiff’s pleadings, the court may draw
reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. Aldana v. Del Monte Fresh Produce, N.A.,
Inc., 416 F.3d 1242, 1248 (11th Cir. 2005).
Third, a court assesses the complaint’s well-pleaded allegations to determine
whether they state a plausible cause of action based upon the identified claim’s
elements. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Plausibility ensues “when the plaintiff pleads factual
content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is
liable for the misconduct alleged,” and the analysis involves a context-specific task
requiring a court “to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.” Id. at 678,
679 (citations omitted). The plausibility standard does not equate to a “probability
8

requirement,” yet it requires more than a “mere possibility of misconduct” or factual
statements that are “merely consistent with a defendant’s liability.” Id. at 678, 679
(citations omitted).
2.

Application

The

ministerial

exception

“precludes

application

of

[employment

discrimination laws] to claims concerning the employment relationship between a
religious institution and its ministers.” Hosanna–Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church &
Sch. v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171, 188 (2012). “The exception ... ensures that the authority
to select and control who will minister to the faithful—a matter strictly
ecclesiastical—is the church’s alone.” Id. at 194–95 (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted). “The purpose of the exception is not to safeguard a church’s
decision to fire a minister only when it is made for a religious reason. The exception
instead ensures that the authority to select and control who will minister to the
faithful . . . is the church’s alone” because it is “a matter ‘strictly ecclesiastical.’” Id. at
194–95 (citations omitted).
Although the Supreme Court determined “[t]he ministerial exception is not
limited to the head of a religious congregation,” and insulates a religious
organization’s “selection of those who will personify its beliefs,” id. at 188, 190, there
exists no “rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister.” Id. at
190. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court provided some guidance on the circumstances
that might qualify an employee as a minister. First, an employee is more likely to be a
9

minister if a religious organization holds the employee out as a minister by bestowing
a formal religious title. See id. at 191. Although an ecclesiastical title “by itself, does not
automatically ensure coverage, the fact that an employee has been ordained or
commissioned as a minister is surely relevant.” Id. at 193.
A second consideration is the “substance reflected in that title,” such as “a
significant degree of religious training followed by a formal process of
commissioning.” Id. at 191. Third, an employee whose “job duties reflect [ ] a role in
conveying the Church’s message and carrying out its mission” is likely to be covered
by the exception, even if the employee devotes only a small portion of the workday to
strictly religious duties and spends the balance of her time performing secular
functions. Id. at 192. Finally, an employee who holds herself out as a religious leader
is more likely to be considered a minister. Id. at 191.
More critically at this juncture, the ministerial exception “operates as an
affirmative defense to an otherwise cognizable claim, not a jurisdictional bar.” Id. at
195 n.4. The court may not dismiss a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) if the complaint
does not demonstrate an affirmative defense on its face. See Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S.
199, 215 (2007) (citing 5B Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice
and Procedure § 1357 (3d ed. 2004) (“the applicability of [an affirmative] defense has
to be clearly indicated and must appear on the face of the pleading to be used as the
basis for the motion”)); Cottone v. Jenne, 326 F.3d 1352, 1357 (11th Cir. 2003) (“A

10

complaint is subject to dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) when its allegations, on their
face, show that an affirmative defense bars recovery on the claim.”) (citation omitted).
Based upon the foregoing precedent, the court cannot grant Decatur Baptist’s
Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. On the face of Kelley’s Complaint, the well pleaded
facts do not indicate Kelley served as a minister for Decatur Baptist.

As the

Background depicts, the Complaint merely declares that Kelley was a maintenance
and child care worker. Decatur Baptist argues in its Motion and supporting briefs that
Kelley was a minister charged with “equipping, training, and evangelizing the next
generation according to biblical standards and morals,” (Doc. 5-1 at 5), yet in her
opposition Kelley disputes she served such a role. Therefore, these disputed issues
prevent the court from applying the ministerial exception as a matter of law.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the court DENIES Defendant Decatur Baptist’s
Motion to Dismiss Complaint.

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure

12(a)(4)(A), the court ORDERS Decatur Baptist to file its Answer to the Complaint
within 14 days of notice of this order.
DONE this 1st day of May, 2018.

____________________________________
HERMAN N. JOHNSON, JR.
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

11