The New York State Division of Human Rights [DHR] dismissed Plaintiff's hostile work environment claim filed against his former employer, the Diocese of Buffalo [Diocese], concluding that the "ministerial exception"* that flows from the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States deprived the DHR of jurisdiction over Plaintiff's complaint.
Plaintiff appealed DHR's ruling.
A New York State Supreme Court, holding that "the absence of controlling authority does not constitute a rational basis" to determine that the ministerial exception barred review of [Plaintiff's] hostile work environment complaint, ruled that DHR's determination to that effect was an error of law. Reversing DHR's dismissal of the Plaintiff's complaint, Supreme Court remanded the matter to DHR.
Both DHR and the Diocese appealed the Supreme Court's ruling.
The Appellate Division, holding that Supreme Court did not give "requisite deference" to DHR, applied that standard of review to the matter and opined that DHR's "determination with respect to the hostile work environment claim is not arbitrary and capricious or affected by an error of law" because "there is no controlling ... precedent and the federal courts that have addressed the issue are divided on the extent to which the ministerial exception applies to [such] claims".
Plaintiff appealed the Appellate Division's ruling.
Noting that the United States Supreme Court has expressly held that the ministerial exception is an affirmative defense, not a jurisdictional bar, the New York State Court of Appeals concluded that DHR's determination was affected by an error of law, reversed the order of the Appellate Division and remitted the matter to the Appellate Division with directions to remand the Plaintiff's hostile work environment claim to the DHR "for further proceedings ...".
In the words of the Court of Appeals, "[because] DHR erred in treating the ministerial exception as a jurisdictional bar rather than an affirmative defense, its determination was affected by an error of law." The court said that in its reaching that conclusion it expressed "no view on whether any of the Diocese's defenses are meritorious" and "the order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, with costs, and matter remitted to that Court with direction to remand to DHR for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion".
* The Court of Appeals' decision noted the "ministerial exception is a doctrine grounded in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and recognized by the United States Supreme Court in two recent decisions: Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v EEOC (565 US 171 [2012]) and Our Lady of Guadalupe School v Morrissey-Berru (591 US 732 [2020])."
Those decisions, said the court "explain that the ministerial exception 'protects the right of religious institutions to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine' by supplying an affirmative defense to claims brought under 'laws governing the employment relationship between a religious institution and certain key employees'".
Click HERE to access the decision of the Court of Appeals posted on the Internet.