Victor Ibhawa, a Black Nigerian Catholic priest, was hired by the Diocese of Buffalo in 2016 as Parish Administrator of Blessed Trinity Church in Buffalo. In 2020, his employment was terminated. Ibhawa filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights (DHR) alleging racial discrimination due to incidents where an employee used a racial slur, and a parishioner made xenophobic remarks.
Ibhawa claimed that Diocesan officials to whom he reported the incidents failed to investigate these incidents and made offensive remarks about “foreign priests.” At a subsequent meeting, two Diocesan officials offered to buy Ibhawa a plane ticket to Nigeria and told him that the Bishop could remove his faculties (i.e., the authority to perform his priestly duties). Shortly afterwards, the Diocese informed Ibhawa that his employment had been terminated and his priestly faculties removed, which meant that that he could not apply for a position as a priest in the Diocese. Eventually, the Diocese hired a white priest to replace him.
Based on these assertions, Ibhawa alleged claims of hostile work environment and unlawful termination on the basis of race and national origin. He sought, among other remedies, compensatory and punitive damages.
The Diocese denied Ibhawa’s allegations and raised three affirmative defenses, including the ministerial exception. The ministerial exception is based on the First Amendment and is recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court. It protects religious institutions’ right to make employment decisions regarding certain key employees without state interference.
The Diocese argued that Ibhawa’s complaint should be dismissed because the determination as to who will lead a congregation and teach its faith clearly falls within the ministerial exception. It asserted in its second defense that as a clergy member, Ibhawa was not an “employee” entitled to bring a claim under the Human Rights Law.
DHR dismissed Ibhawa’s complaint, citing a lack of jurisdiction due to the ministerial exception. Ibhawa then petitioned the New York trial court, which partially granted his request, ruling that while the unlawful termination claim was properly dismissed under the ministerial exception, the hostile work environment claim required further review. The trial court remanded the complaint to DHR. Both DHR and the Diocese appealed.
The New York appellate division reversed the trial court’s decision, reinstating DHR’s dismissal of the hostile work environment claim. They argued that DHR’s determination was not arbitrary or affected by an error of law, given the lack of controlling precedent and divided opinions in federal courts on the application of the ministerial exception to such claims. Ibhawa appealed to New York’s highest court, called the New York Court of Appeals.
The New York Court of Appeals found that DHR’s dismissal was affected by an error of law. The Court emphasized that the U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly stated that the ministerial exception is an affirmative defense, not a jurisdictional bar. By treating the exception as a jurisdictional issue, DHR made a legal error.
DHR and the Diocese argued that the Court of Appeals should overlook the error of law because DHR would have still dismissed the claims if it had properly understood the ministerial exception as an affirmative defense. The Court of Appeals disagreed, noting that the distinction matters, and reasoning that an affirmative defense goes to whether the plaintiff is entitled to relief, and a jurisdictional bar goes to whether the court has the power to hear the case.
The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s order and remanded the matter back to DHR for further proceedings. The Court stressed that it was not ruling on the merits of any of the Diocese’s defenses, including the two statutory defenses raised alongside the ministerial exception.
Matter of Ibhawa v. New York State Div. of Human Rights, 2024 NY Slip Op 05872.
Note: This case underscores that the ministerial exception serves as an affirmative defense rather than a jurisdictional bar in claims involving religious institutions. This decision clarifies how the ministerial exception is applied in the litigation process.