Judge Maurice A. Leiter, Case 21STCV31304 2023-02-14 Tentative Ruling

Moving Party: Defendants Jae Yeun Lee, Dae Kun Lee, He Keuk Lee, Sun Hwan Kim and John S. Suh

Responding Party: Plaintiff Howard Kim and Los Angeles Korean 1st Presbyterian Church Corporation

DEFENDANTS TO FILE AND SERVE AN ANSWER TO THE FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT WITHIN 20 DAYS OF NOTICE OF RULING.

If the parties wish to submit on the tentative, please email the courtroom at¿SMCdept54@lacourt.org¿with notice to opposing counsel (or self-represented party) before 8:00 am on the day of the hearing.

On July 25, 2022, Plaintiff Howard Kim on behalf of Los Angeles Korean 1st Presbyterian Church Corporation filed the operative first amended complaint against Defendants Jae Yeun Lee, Dae Kun Lee, He Keuk Lee, Sun Hwan Kim and John S. Suh, asserting causes of action for (1) breach of fiduciary duty; (2) conversion; (3) declaratory relief; (4) injunctive relief; and (5) battery.

This is a dispute between two factions of the Los Angeles Korean 1st Presbyterian Church over who may run the Church. On December 14, 2021, Judge Chalfant in Department 85 ruled on Defendants’ petition determine the validity of the Church’s election of directors. The Court found that Plaintiff Kim had not been properly elected as Senior Pastor of the Church and that the pre-election Session members (here Defendant Lee) were the proper Session members. Thereafter, Department 85 appointed a receiver to oversee a new election. After the election, the receiver was relieved. No new session members were elected; Lee remains the only session member.

Plaintiff alleges that Defendants have harassed other church members, removed property from the church and wrongfully appointed a new pastor.

A demurrer to a complaint may be taken to the whole complaint or to any of the causes of action in it. (CCP § 430.50(a).) A demurrer challenges only the legal sufficiency of the complaint, not the truth of its factual allegations or the plaintiff's ability to prove those allegations. (Picton v. Anderson Union High Sch. Dist. (1996) 50 Cal. App. 4th 726, 732.) The court must treat as true the complaint's material factual allegations, but not contentions, deductions or conclusions of fact or law. (Id. at 732-33.) The complaint is to be construed liberally to determine whether a cause of action has been stated. (Id. at 733.)

Defendants demur to the first amended complaint on the grounds that the Court cannot decide questions of church doctrine and Plaintiff has failed to comply with the notice requirements for bringing a derivative action.[1]

Defendants assert the Court is precluded from deciding the issues in this action under the ecclesiastical rule of judicial deference. The Court of Appeal has discussed this the doctrine as follows:

“[W]here resolution of the disputes cannot be made without extensive inquiry by civil courts into religious law and polity, the First and Fourteenth Amendments mandate that civil courts shall not disturb the decisions of the highest ecclesiastical tribunal within a church of hierarchical polity, but must accept such decisions as binding on them, in their application to the religious issues of doctrine or polity before them. [Citation.]” (Ibid.) “The prohibition against civil court participation in sectarian disputes extends to issues involving membership, clergy credentials and discipline, as well as religious entity governance and administration. (Jones [v. Wolf (1979) ] 443 U.S. [595,] 602, 603–604 [99 S.Ct. 3020, 61 L.Ed.2d 775]; Concord [Christian, supra,] 132 Cal.App.4th at p. 1411 [34 Cal.Rptr.3d 412].)” (New v. Kroeger (2008) 167 Cal.App.4th 800, 815 [84 Cal.Rptr.3d 464].)

(Kim v. The True Church Members of Holy Hill Community Church (2015) 236 Cal.App.4th 1435, 1445.) Defendants argue that the FAC asks the Court to determine, in violation of the ecclesiastical rule, whether Defendants are worthy in a moral or spiritual sense of being Church leaders.

In opposition, Plaintiff contends that Los Angeles Korean 1st Presbyterian Church is not a hierarchical church but a congressional church. “[A] hierarchical church is one in which individual churches are “organized as a body with other churches having similar faith and doctrine[, and] with a common ruling convocation or ecclesiastical head” vested with ultimate ecclesiastical authority over the individual congregations and members of the entire organized church.” (Concord Christian Center v. Open Bible Standard Churches (2005) 132 Cal.App.4th 1396, 1409.) “In contrast, a congregational church is defined as one ‘strictly independent of other ecclesiastical associations, and [one that] so far as church government is concerned, owes no fealty or obligation to any higher authority.’ ” (Ibid.) Defendants do not address this issue in reply.

As discussed, the ecclesiastical rule prohibits the courts from interfering with the decisions of the “highest ecclesiastical tribunal within a church of hierarchical polity.” (Kim, supra.) Defendants have not shown that the church is hierarchical or that the highest hierarchical ecclesiastical tribunal has made a decision with which the Court cannot interfere. The demurrer cannot be sustained on this basis.

Defendants assert that Plaintiff’s derivative claims fail because he has not complied with Corp. Code § 5710, which requires that a plaintiff allege “with particularity plaintiff's efforts to secure from the board such action as plaintiff desires, or the reasons for not making such effort, and alleges further that plaintiff has either informed the corporation or the board in writing of the ultimate facts of each cause of action against each defendant or delivered to the corporation or the board a true copy of the complaint which plaintiff proposes to file.” (Corp. Code § 5710(b)(2).)

In opposition, Plaintiff asserts that the notice requirement is inapplicable because the parties stipulated to allow this action to proceed as a derivative action. Defendants do not address this in reply. The demurrer cannot be sustained on this basis.

[1] Defendants’ reply brief includes grounds not included in Defendants’ opening brief. The Court does not consider arguments raised for the first time in reply.