wfn.org | Precedent-Setting New Jersey Legal Case

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (258
notes).

Note 258 by UMNS on Aug. 4, 1997 at 15:47 Eastern (4131 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

Contact:  Joretta Purdue                          446(10-71B){258}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722            Aug. 4, 1997

New Jersey court decision may influence
other clergy sexual misconduct cases

                 by United Methodist News Service

     A recent New Jersey state supreme court decision has possible
ramifications for the future. That is the concern expressed by
Mary Logan, general counsel for the United Methodist Church's
administrative and finance agency.
     Sanford Brown, chancellor of the Southern New Jersey Annual
(regional) Conference, said he found both positives and negatives,
but would "be happier if the New Jersey Supreme Court had declined
to find any liability based on trust standards."
     The case relates to charges of "clergy malpractice" and
"breach of fiduciary duty" -- along with other charges -- against
an Episcopal clergyman by a parishioner who alleges that the
clergyman established a sexual relationship with her during
counselling.
     At a hearing before this case came to trial, the judge
dismissed all counts of breach of fiduciary duty and negligence in
pastoral counseling. That ruling was reversed by an appeals court
and subsequently was brought to the state supreme court.
     The high court, in a decision announced July 22, ruled that
the case could be pursued on the basis of breach of fiduciary
trust. It ruled against allowing the plaintiff to go forward with
clergy malpractice complaints. 
     In other states, Logan explained, courts have refused to
allow allegations of clergy malpractice because it "is a secular
theory of liability" previously applied to such professionals as
accountants, psychologists and attorneys. 
     Pursuit of malpractice suits requires the testimony of expert
witnesses on both sides to speak to the question of whether the
care given met the standard of care, she continued, but for clergy
that would get into church polity or doctrine.
     "Most courts have not allowed fiduciary duty claims to go
forward against clergy, but a few courts have -- the most notable
being Colorado," Logan said. The New Jersey court has taken the
same position as the Colorado courts, she added. 
     A fiduciary relationship is a special trust relationship,
Logan said, in which one party has an obligation to provide a
higher standard of care to the client, patient or whomever because
of the relationship.
     Brown has multiple interests in the case. He and Douglas E.
Arpert, chancellor of the Northern New Jersey Annual Conference,
on behalf of the conferences and Bishop Alfred Johnson, who
presides at both, signed an amicus or friend of the court brief
prepared by area Roman Catholic Church representatives.
     Moreover, less than a month after this decision was handed
down, Brown will be in court for the discovery phase of a case
involving a United Methodist minister. He expects to cite the
supreme court decision in making his points.
     Brown said he is "very pleased that the New Jersey Supreme
Court did not apply a clergy malpractice standard, ... declining
to expand liability on that basis." He said he believes the
language used in this case will be very helpful in preventing the
courts from interfering in conference practices.
     On the negative side, he said, the court did apply a
fiduciary standard as a non-religious standard. It ruled, he
explained, that in a pastoral counselling setting, a minister
could be held responsible for breach of trust and that the courts
could determine this without interfering in doctrine or religious
belief.
     Brown said he took note of the dissenting opinion of two
justices, who indicated their belief that a presumption of a civil
standard of trust will require all references to the defendant's
being a clergyman be deleted from depositions and testimony when
the remanded case finally comes to trial.
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