Federal Court Refines Claims Subject to “Ministerial Exception”

The “ministerial exception” to laws governing employment relationships in the U.S. prevents courts from considering employment-related legal claims made by church employees, or former employees, who meet the definition of a “minister.” Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020); Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171 (2012). The exception encourages churches to resolve employment disputes internally rather than in court (which is in keeping with I Corinthians 6:1-8), and prevents courts from delving into ecclesiastical details that could impinge on First Amendment religious freedoms. Do all claims from a former church minister fall within the ministerial exception? A federal district court in New Jersey ruled yesterday that, while claims of wrongful discharge and racial discrimination are barred by the ministerial exception, a claim of defamation is not.

The case, Uzomechina v. Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey (D NJ No. 3:2023cvo2914, Jan. 18, 2024), involves an African-American Episcopal priest who was discharged by the Diocese for financial and sexual misconduct. The priest then obtained a job at a drug addiction clinic, but claims that Diocesan officials published false statements about him so that the drug clinic dismissed him as well. The priest, Gideon A. Uzomechina, then sued the Episcopal Diocese and the drug clinic for wrongful discharge based on race discrimination, breach of contract, and defamation. The Diocese argued that the “ministerial exception” required the court to dismiss the case. There was no dispute here that the plaintiff fit the legal definition of a “minister.”

The federal court cited numerous cases that have dismissed claims of racial discrimination and wrongful discharge based on the ministerial exception in dismissing those claims in this case as well.

As to the defamation claim, the court noted that, while courts typically bar tort claims that arise from an internal church disciplinary process where the alleged defamation occurred within the church, the alleged defamation in this case occurred to non-church members (the drug clinic staff). The court determined that the Diocese, by sharing its internal disciplinary procedures and beliefs with a third party, subjected itself to a tort claim. Nevertheless, the court found in this case that the plaintiff had failed to plead sufficient facts to support a valid claim, and dismissed all the claims against the drug clinic on the same ground.

The ministerial exception is an important component of religious freedom, and courts will continue to wrestle with its applicability to messy church employment situations.

For Whose Benefit is an Apology?

There are two main parties to an apology: the offender (the one who apologizes) and the victim. There may also be a third party, an indirect victim of the offense. So when the offender apologizes, who benefits?

In a Pittsburgh court a few years ago, two men were sentenced after pleading guilty for their roles in stealing numerous rare books and artifacts from the Carnegie Library’s rare book room over a period of years. At the start of their sentencing hearing, they each apologized – to their families, to the Library, and to the city of Pittsburgh.

But the president and director of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Mary Frances Cooper, said, “Sometimes victims say they want an apology. We do not want an apology. Any apology from these thieves would be meaningless. They are only sorry that we discovered what they did.”

Does it do any good for an offender to apologize when the victim doesn’t want to hear it?

Speaker: An apology may be for the benefit of the offender, to restore the offender to community and “to regain moral integrity.” Jennifer Gerarda Brown, “The Role of Apology in Negotiation,” 87 Marquette Law Review 665, 666-667 (2004). From a spiritual perspective, Christians are exhorted to confess their sins, both to God (I John 1:9) and to one another (James 5:16). These commands are not conditioned on the victim’s interest or acceptance; they are essential to restoring the relationship between the offender and God.

Recipient: A good apology can be a tremendous benefit to the victim recipient. It can assure the recipient that it was the offender, and not the victim, who bore responsibility for the harm that occurred. It can remove the obstacle hindering a good relationship and offer the potential for a better future.

Community: The community of which victim and offender are a part may also benefit from a good apology. While not suffering direct loss, the community suffers the rupture of the relationship and may need the apology to begin restoration. Even if the victim cannot fully accept the apology, the community may benefit from it.

When convicted criminals apologize at the start of their sentencing hearing, we can question their sincerity and assume it’s to procure a lighter sentence. But it could also be their last best chance to declare publicly their remorse. If these men are to recover from their crimes and regain any moral integrity, they must acknowledge the full extent of the wrong they did, and repent of it – whether or not the victims accept it. A person who is truly repentant will seek to learn what more needs to be done in order for a victim to accept the apology.

It may take time for a victim to accept an apology. Victims may first need to absorb the full extent of the harm done. In the Pittsburgh case, the Library director is apparently not seeing remorse, and she probably would like full restitution, before she can accept the apology. But even if she cannot accept it now, it may still help her that the offenders expressed it. It may be the little ray of light in the darkness of her pain, that offers hope.

Even if the victim cannot receive the apology, it may benefit the wider community that was negatively affected by the wrong. If these thieves are ever to be restored to their families and communities (in which they’re living, since they received only probation with no incarceration), they will need to repent fully. The community may be currently skeptical, but there may have been some small bit of satisfaction in hearing these men publicly state their remorse and regret.

A good apology is never wasted.

 

Have You Really Forgiven?

Forgiveness is challenging. One of its challenges is that people think that they have forgiven, when they really haven’t. Christians know they’re supposed to forgive, so they convince themselves that they have, but their heart is still unforgiving. The problem is that then they stop working on forgiveness, telling themselves they’ve already taken care of that. They are deceived. In my work as a conflict coach, I frequently encounter people who insist that they have forgiven, although it doesn’t really sound like it to me. It can be challenging to help them see that they haven’t quite arrived.

I recently heard author Lysa TerKeurst speak on Moody Radio about a way to discern whether you’ve truly forgiven. She said you should listen to the story you tell yourself, and others, about the incident or event. How are you describing it? Is it about you, and the details of what happened, or is it about the life lesson you learned from the experience?  If you’ve forgiven, your focus is on the experiential wisdom that you gained along the way. She reminded us that forgiveness is not a feeling; it’s an act of obedience. As many have noted, if you wait until you feel like forgiving, you will never forgive. But, even after you’ve resolved to forgive, it can be hard to discern whether you’re there; this is one way to assess that.

This and other nuggets on forgiveness are in Lysa TerKeurst’s book, Forgiving What You Can’t Forget.

Apology, Take Two

We don’t often get a chance to see a weak apology improved by a second one, but the CEO of Kyte Baby offered just that recently. Kyte Baby is a Texas-based company known for its baby apparel. A new Kyte Baby employee named Marissa Hughes adopted a baby who was born prematurely last month. Hughes asked to work remotely while staying with her baby in the NICU, but the company determined that was not feasible given her duties, and terminated her. Apparently Marissa Hughes’s sister posted this news on Tik-Tok, prompting a backlash from people who saw this action as inconsistent with a company that promotes parenting.

So the CEO of Kyte Baby, Ying Liu, posted an apology to Hughes last Friday in a TikTok video. Liu apologized for how her parental leave was communicated and handled, noting that Kyte Baby “prides itself in being a family-oriented company.” Liu said, “It was my oversight that she didn’t feel supported,” and that she would be reviewing the company’s HR policies to “avoid hurting our staff and community in the future.” This was apparently a public apology that was viewed – and critiqued – by others on social media. They complained that the apology appeared disingenuous and canned.

A few hours later, Ms. Liu posted a second apology on TikTok, acknowledging that the first video was scripted and that she now wanted to go “off script.” In the second apology, she said, “I was the one who made that decision to veto her request to go remote…. This was a terrible decision. I was insensitive and selfish … I cannot imagine the stress that she had to go through, not having the option to go back to work and having to deal with a newborn in the NICU. I fully realize the impact of my decision in this. Thinking back, it was a terrible mistake.”

In effect, she apologized for her apology.

Because we have video of both apologies, it’s a wonderful opportunity to see what makes a good apology, and what doesn’t. It’s not the words alone. I think Ms. Liu might have gotten away with her first apology if she had said it like she meant it; but it did indeed appear that she was reading a script. One wonders if she consulted with anyone before posting the first video; if she had run it by a trusted colleague, would they have recognized and informed her how insincere it sounded? I also know from experience that scripted apologies can work — if the recipient is prepared for it and understands why it needs to be read by the offender. Those conditions never hold for public apologies, so it’s a real challenge to pull off a scripted public apology well.

Even the second apology was not enough for the employee, Marissa Hughes. She posted on Facebook that she would not be returning to the company, although she was encouraged to hear that it would make changes for current and future employees. And customers are now encouraging a boycott of Kyte Baby, proving that even a good apology cannot always fix things.

 

 

When an Apology is not an Apology

As part of their plea deals, lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro were required to apologize for their roles in interfering with the elections in Georgia in 2020. They both pled guilty and were sentenced in October 2023. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution used an open records request to obtain the apologies that were offered at their plea hearings, and reported this week that they are each one sentence long, hand-written on notebook paper:

“I apologize to the citizens of the State of Georgia and to the citizens of Fulton County for my involvement in Count 15 of the indictment,” Kenneth Chesebro wrote.

“I apologize for my actions in connection with the events in Coffee County,” wrote Sidney Powell.

These are not apologies. They do not include enough of the elements of a good apology to meet the basic definition. When analyzing public apologies, I try to note what is good about the apology before zeroing on its deficiencies. Here, the most I can say is that the statements don’t shift blame to others. But neither do they really accept responsibility, an essential element of an apology. Often at sentencing hearings, the defendant does the opposite of what these two did — the defendant apologizes so profusely that their sincerity is tainted by the appearance of winning favor (a lighter sentence) from the judge. No worries about that here. No effort to take responsibility, acknowledge the harm done, articulate the specific actions that were so egregious, express remorse, or identify how they hope to behave differently in the future. One wonders why the judge accepted these as “apologies.” They’re not.