St. Joseph Catholic Orphan Soc’y v. Hon. Brian C. Edwards

Plaintiffs, former members of the St. Joseph Catholic Orphan Society’s Board of Trustees, sued St. Joseph, challenging the validity of the Board’s action removing them from the Board and seeking reappointment to the Board. St. Joseph moved to dismiss, arguing that the trial court was without subject-matter jurisdiction because of the application of the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine. The trial court denied the motion. St. Joseph then sought a writ of mandamus requiring the trial court to dismiss the underlying action. The court of appeals denied the writ. The Supreme Court (1) affirmed the denial of the writ, concluding that the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine does not divest courts of subject-matter jurisdiction to adjudicate cases they are authorized to hear; but (2) reversed the trial court’s order denying St. Joseph’s motion. Specifically, the Court treated St. Joseph’s petition for writ of mandamus as an interlocutory appeal from the trial court’s denial of its motion to dismiss and, on the merits, agreed that the underlying action presented a question of ecclesiastical governance, which meant that the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine prohibited the underlying action from going forward in the trial court. View "St. Joseph Catholic Orphan Soc’y v. Hon. Brian C. Edwards" on Justia Law