This is a Petition for Review that I recently filed with the Minnesota Supreme
Court. With my client's permission, I am posting it here.
To see the Court of Appeals decision we are appealing (via Finance and
Commerce), click here.
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STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN SUPREME COURT
________________________________
)
HENRY ZIMMER, ) PETITION FOR REVIEW OF
) DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS
Petitioner, )
) Appellate Court Case
-vs- ) Number C0-96-1066
)
DAN NAUMAN, ) Date of Filing of Court
) of Appeals Decision:
Respondent. )
________________________________) January 14, 1997
To: The Supreme Court of the State of Minnesota
The Petitioner, Henry Zimmer, requests Supreme Court Review of the above-entitled decision of the Court of Appeals upon the following grounds:
1. Statement of Facts and Procedural History.
This is a harassment proceeding under Minn. Stat. 609.748. Petitioner Henry Zimmer, a member of the Church of the Immaculate Conception since 1969, has been involved in a number of disputes, some of which have previously come before the courts.
The instant case arose on or about January 21, 1995, when the Church's priest, Father Paul Moudry, sent a letter purporting to ban Mr. Zimmer from the Church's property. Mr. Zimmer attended services on three subsequent occasions, and this action followed.
At trial, Mr. Zimmer attempted to present evidence from the Code of Cannon Law, the internal law of the Roman Catholic Church, tending to show that he had a right to enter his own church.
This evidence was proffered in the form of expert testimony of canon lawyer Duane Galles. According to the offer of proof, Mr. Galles would have testified that "[t]he canon laws are very, very clear that it requires the actual act of an ordained: that is, an archbishop or bishop or vicar general, those people who make a determination that someone may not attend mass at a particular parish." (T. 47). Mr. Zimmer also proffered an affidavit of Mr. Galles, which is reproduced in the appendix.
The trial court excluded the evidence, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
Specifically, the District Court held:
THE COURT: Whoop, whoop, whoop! We're not talking about canon law here.
* * *
We are not going to talk about canon law here under any set of circumstances. And if the folks on the Hill want to tell me we're going to talk about canon law, then they're going to do it.
* * *
Canon law does not supersede state law, in spite of what anybody may think. And if there's a canon law argument, it's going to take place at the end of Summit Avenue and it's not going to take place in this courtroom.
(T. 15-17).
The District Court further held:
I'm finding that a pastor of a parish or a minister in charge of a church, a rabbi in charge of a synagogue, by virtue of their office, is a person in lawful possession within the meaning of out [sic] statute that entitles them to keep a person off that property if they want to.
(T. 33).
Petitioner Zimmer respectfully submits that he should have been able to rebut this "finding" with admissible evidence from the Code of Canon Law.
2. Statement of Legal Issues and their Resolution by the Court of Appeals.
Petitioner was purportedly barred from the premises of his church. When the church's parish council brought this matter before the civil courts, did Petitioner have the right to present evidence that under the church's internal laws and procedures, the purported exclusion was improper?
The Court of Appeals held No.
3. Argument.
Petitioner respectfully submits that this Court should grant discretionary review because the question presented is an important one upon which the Supreme Court should rule. This issue was before this Court in State v. Zimmer, 487 N.W.2d 886 (Minn. 1992), cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 973 (1993). However, this Court held that expert interpretation (such as that proffered here) was necessary:
[The defendant] claims that he should have been allowed to put the Code of Canon Law in evidence to dispute the pastor's testimony (although the canons cited by defendant are very opaque on this point), and to show he had a right to attend church to fulfi ll his religious obligations (a claim not disputed). Our opinion concedes the Code might have had some relevance to the case, provided, however, it was accompanied by expert interpretation. Here that proviso was not met, and that is all we decide and all we have been asked to decide.
Id. at 888, n. 1, emphasis added.
In the instant case, that proviso has been met, and the important question left open by State v. Zimmer is squarely before the court. Petitioner Zimmer respectfully submits that with the issue presented as squarely as it is, the Court should now follow the course favored by Justice Gardebring in her dissenting opinion:
I would remand the matter to the trial court for retrial, directing that the Code of Canon Law be admitted into evidence on the lawful possessor and claim-of-right issues.
Id. at 891, Gardebring, J., dissenting.
Mr. Zimmer's proffered evidence would have been relevant on two key issues in the case: Whether the priest was the "lawful possessor," and whether the defendant was on the premises under a claim of right.
Briefly stated, the defense in this case was that the Priest and Parish council lacked any authority to exclude the defendant. Such an exclusion must come from higher quarters, and must follow the extensive procedural protections afforded by the Code of Canon Law. Mr. Galles would have testified, for example, that "[a] parish council is, under canon 536, merely an advisory board . . . and has no right of ownership nor any management functions as such."
Had the instant case involved a corporation or organization other than a church, it is clear that evidence of internal rules would be admissible. For example, if an individual director were expelled from a corporate boardroom by another director, or even a custodian or security guard, the expelled director would have the right, if charged with trespass, to try to show that the person excluding him had no right to do so. It is clear that he could present evidence that, under the business's internal rules, no such authority existed. Those internal rules might include Articles of Incorporation, corporate bylaws, or other internal procedures of the corporation.
Mr. Zimmer asks for nothing more. The Articles of Incorporation of the Church vests the Church's authority in a Board of Directors, which is empowered to act in a manner "not contrary to . . . the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church. . . ."
And under the "discipline of the Roman Catholic Church," specifically Canons 843, 912, 1247, and 1248 of the Code of Canon Law, there was no authority to exclude the defendant.
Under Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 604 (1979), inquiry into the Code of Canon Law is proper because "[t]he neutral-principle method . . . requires a civil court to examine certain religious documents, such as a church constitution. . . . In undertaking such an examination, a civil court must take special care to scrutinize the document in purely secular terms. . . ."
In the instant case, Mr. Zimmer was not allowed to have the court "scrutinize the document in purely secular terms." This, it is submitted, was error.
For these reasons, the Petitioner seeks an order granting review of the Court of Appeals.
DATED this ___ day of February, 1997.
___________________________________
Richard P. Clem
1313 Southeast Fifth Street
Suite 217-D
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Phone (612) 379-3873
Atty. Reg. No. 192648
Attorney for Petitioner
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