Free Exercise Clause Bars Pastor’s Employment Claim
March 17, 2014After Charles Reese was terminated two years into his five-year term as pastor for the Faith Cumberland Presbyterian Church, he brought suit against his former employer for breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress seeking, among other things, lost wages, punitive damages and attorney’s fees. Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent holding in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. EEOC, 132, S. Ct. 694 (2012), the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s dismissal of the suit on First Amendment grounds. Quoting Hosanna-Tabor, the Court found that if it were to “second guess the Church’s decision to terminate Reese it would deprive the Church of its right to shape its own faith and mission by imposing an unwanted minister.”
