Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) v. Honorable Brian Edwards

The Supreme Court affirmed the order of the court of appeals granting in part the Presbyterian Church’s petition for a writ to prohibit the trial court from lifting its stay of discovery in this defamation case, holding that the Church failed to establish it was entitled to the writ as to certain limited discovery.Reverend Eric Hoey filed a complaint alleging that the Church had defamed him. After Hoey served the Church discovery requests the Church argued that Hoey should not be entitled to discovery until the trial court ruled on the Church’s ecclesiastical-abstention and ministerial-exception defenses. The trial court disagreed and ordered the Church to respond to Hoey’s discovery requests. The Church petitioned the court of appeals for a writ, arguing that the trial court had abrogated its immunity by forcing it to participate in discovery without first making a threshold immunity determination. The court of appeals granted the writ to the extent the trial court should limit discovery to that which was necessary to determine whether the church was entitled to ecclesiastical immunity. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the Church satisfied the “certain special cases” writ criteria as to broad-reaching discovery but failed to meet this standard as to limited discovery the court may deem necessary to determine whether the Church was immune from suit. View "Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) v. Honorable Brian Edwards" on Justia Law