JACKSON v. PRESBYTERY OF SUSQUEHANNA VALLEY (1999)

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, New York.

Reverend James Renwick JACKSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The PRESBYTERY OF SUSQUEHANNA VALLEY, et al.,Defendants-Respondents.

Decided: October 26, 1999

SULLIVAN, J.P., TOM, RUBIN, SAXE and BUCKLEY, JJ.

Jack S. Dweck, for Plaintiff-Appellant. Robert E. O'Connor, Robin Mary Heaney, Philip T. Castellano and John V. Griffin, Jr., for Defendants-Respondents.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Franklin Weissberg, J.), entered on or about January 27, 1999, which granted defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Plaintiff, a Presbyterian minister, claims to have been defamed by statements made by other Presbyterian ministers reflecting adversely upon his fitness to continue serving as a minister. Inasmuch as the statements concerned plaintiff's ministerial qualifications, however, adjudication of the dispute would impermissibly involve the court in matters left by constitutional design for ecclesiastic resolution (see, Yaggie v. Indiana-Kentucky Synod Lutheran Church, 860 F.Supp. 1194, affd. 6th Cir., 64 F.3d 664; see also, Downs v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, 111 Md.App. 616, 625-626, 683 A.2d 808).

MEMORANDUM DECISION.

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