fiduciaries

[Volokh, Eugene]

        This brings to mind the very recent Smith v. Calvary Christian
Church, 1998 WL 842259 (Mich. App. Dec. 4).  Smith, a congregant, told a
pastor about his [Smith's] marital infidelity; several years later, the
pastor told the congregation, including Smith's wife, family, and
friends about this.  Smith sued for breach of an "explicit and implicit
duty of confidentiality" a duty based on the Michigan priest-penitent
privilege, and for intentional infliction of emotional distress and
invasion of privacy.

        The court held, in a rather confusing opinion, that the duty of
confidentiality claim was barred by the Free Ex Cl, since the claim
would require an investigation of church doctrine, but that the IIED and
privacy claims could go forward *if* plaintiff wasn't a member of
defendant church at the time of the disclosure.  A dissenting judge
would have thrown out the whole claim.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MARCSAJC at AOL.COM [SMTP:MARCSAJC at AOL.COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 1998 8:31 AM
> To:   RELIGIONLAW at listserv.ucla.edu
> Subject:      Re: fiduciaries
>
> Yesterdays New York Times reported on a case in which a woman who had
> sought
> counsel from her rabbi  (as had her husband) sued the rabbi who had
> revealed
> some confessions she had made to the husband. The rabbi insisted that
> hew had
> a religious duty to disclose because the wife had allegedly confessed
> to
> actions which could have led the husband inadvertently into sin.
> I New York law gives the priest-penitent privilege to the penitent; if
> the
> clergy is merely a fiduciary, it is plain the rabbi loses; but if the
> rabbi
> has independent rights, this becomes a very difficult case. There is
> some
> question as to whether the wife had an expectation of privacy,because
> the
> rabbi claims to have been acting as a go-between,but the court's
> opinion does
> not reflect this factual dispute.
> Marc Stern