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Court Dismisses Prof's Dismissal Complaint Under Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine

By Howard M. Friedman

Earlier this week, an Ohio trial court held that under the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine it could not decide a breach of contract claim (full text of complaint) brought by David Hoffeditz, a Professor of Bible and Greek, against Cedarville University, a Baptist college. Yesterday's Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Greene County Common Pleas judge J. Timothy Campbell concluded that he could not decide whether the tenured associate professor's dismissal was for just cause without examining matters of religious doctrine. The First Amendment precludes such an inquiry. The court however refused to dismiss Hoffeditz's claim that the University committed fraud by extending his contract into the 2007-8 academic year without telling him it had already decided to dismiss him once its academic accreditation process was completed. Extensive documents related to the case are posted on a website title The Cedarville Situation.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on September 25, 2009 (boomark / email).