| Citizens for St. Patrick's v Saint Patrick's Church of W.Troy |
| 2014 NY Slip Op 03314 [117 AD3d 1213] |
| May 8, 2014 |
| Appellate Division, Third Department |
[*1]
| Citizens for St. Patrick's et al., Appellants, et al.,Plaintiffs, v Saint Patrick's Church of West Troy, Also Known as St. Patrick's Church ofthe Village of West Troy, et al., Respondents. |
Rosemary Nichols, Watervliet, for appellants.
Tobin and Dempf, Albany (Michael L. Costello of counsel), for Saint Patrick'sChurch of West Troy, respondent.
Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna, LLP, Albany (Robert L. Sweeney of counsel),for PCP Watervliet, LLC, respondent.
McCarthy, J. Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court (O'Connor, J.), enteredDecember 31, 2012 in Albany County, which, among other things, granted a motion bydefendant Saint Patrick's Church of West Troy to dismiss the complaint.
Defendant Saint Patrick's Church of West Troy (hereinafter St. Patrick's) is a RomanCatholic church that was incorporated in 1875. In 2005, by decree of the bishop, St.Patrick's was consolidated with several other parishes. In 2012, St. Patrick's agreed to sellits real property, including a historic church building, to defendant PCP Watervliet, LLC,which intended to demolish the buildings and lease the property to a supermarket.Pursuant to [*2]Religious Corporations Law§ 12 and N-PCL 511, St. Patrick's requested judicial authorization for thesale of the property. Supreme Court granted the petition by order dated December 5,2012 (hereinafter the authorization order).
On December 13, 2012, plaintiffs, a citizen advocacy group composed of formerparishioners of St. Patrick's and seven of those individual parishioners, filed a notice ofpendency against the property and, a few days later, served St. Patrick's with a motion tointervene in the Religious Corporations Law proceeding. St. Patrick's moved to, amongother things, cancel the notice of pendency. On December 28, 2012, plaintiffs withdrewthe motion to intervene and notice of pendency[FN1]
and filed a second notice of pendency along with a summons and complaint seekinga declaratory judgment stating that the Religious Corporations Law petition wasdefective, rescinding the authorization order and granting a hearing on whether the saleof the property should be permitted. On December 31, 2012, Supreme Court granted themotion by St. Patrick's to cancel the notice of pendency and dismissed the summons andcomplaint, finding that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the transfer of the property.Plaintiffs appeal.[FN2]
Plaintiffs' action was an impermissible collateral attack on the authorization order.The proper procedure would have been to move to vacate that order pursuant to CPLR5015, which permits "any interested person" to move for such relief (CPLR 5015 [a]),rather than commencing a second plenary action collaterally attacking an order in a prioraction (see Matter of LimitoneEnters., Inc. v Walker, 102 AD3d 697, 697-698 [2013]; Cramer v Sabo, 31 AD3d998, 999 [2006], lv denied 8 NY3d 801 [2007]). Thus, dismissal of theaction was required (see Matter of Limitone Enters., Inc. v Walker, 102 AD3d at698).
Additionally, Supreme Court properly dismissed the complaint because plaintiffslack standing to challenge the sale of the property. Plaintiffs may have been members ofthe congregation or "ecclesiastical body" of St. Patrick's, but that does not make themmembers of the religious corporation (Blaudziunas v Egan, 18 NY3d 275, 282 [2011]). "Member"is defined for religious corporation purposes as "one having membership rights in acorporation in accordance with the provisions of its certificate of incorporation orby-laws" (N-PCL 102 [a] [9]; see Religious Corporations Law § 2-b[1]). Pursuant to the incorporation documents and bylaws of St. Patrick's and the relevantstatutes, St. Patrick's is managed by a five-member board of trustees consisting of thediocesan bishop, the vicar general of the diocese, the rector of the church and twolaypersons selected by the other trustees (see Religious Corporations Law§§ 90, 91).[FN3]
Religious Corporations Law § 5 "vests the custody and control of areligious corporation's [*3]real property in the board oftrustees" (Blaudziunas v Egan, 18 NY3d at 281). As plaintiffs are not members ofthe religious corporation, they lack standing to challenge decisions concerning thetransfer of the corporation's property (see id. at 282).
Peters, P.J., Lahtinen and Garry, JJ., concur. Ordered that the order is affirmed, withone bill of costs.
Footnote 1:Plaintiffs conceded thata notice of pendency must be filed in conjunction with a complaint, as opposed to amotion (see CPLR 6511 [a]; Chateau Rive Corp. v Riverview Partners, LP, 18 AD3d492, 493 [2005]).
Footnote 2:Four of the individualplaintiffs have withdrawn and discontinued their appeal.
Footnote 3:Plaintiffs contend thatapplication of this narrow definition of membership means that only the people whoapproved of the sale of property would have standing to challenge such approval. Whilethe definition of corporate membership is limited to the trustees for religiouscorporations that are Roman Catholic churches (see Religious Corporations Law§§ 90, 91), membership is broader for religious corporations that areassociated with certain other denominations (see e.g. Religious Corporations Law§§ 66 [Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)], 134 [Baptist churches], 164[churches of the United Church of Christ, Congregational Christian churches andIndependent churches], 195 [other denominations]). Membership qualifications andorganizational structure—whether hierarchical or congregational—of achurch that operates as a religious corporation are generally determined by the governingbody of the affiliated religious denomination; due to the constitutional principle ofseparation of church and state, courts and the Legislature will not intrude on thoseecclesiastical matters (see Kedroff v Saint Nicholas Cathedral of Russian OrthodoxChurch of North America, 344 US 94, 107-110 [1952]; see also Episcopal Diocese ofRochester v Harnish, 11 NY3d 340, 350-352 [2008]).