716 A.2d 960 | Conn. Super. Ct. | 1998
The plaintiff filed this action on July 28, 1997, alleging, in an eight count complaint, that she had suffered injury and damages due to the intentional and negligent acts of the defendants, Father Peter J. Zizka (Zizka), Father John T. O'Connor (O'Connor), pastor of the Church of the Holy Spirit, the Church of the Holy Spirit (the church), located at 183 Church Street in Newington and the Hartford Roman Catholic Diocesan Corporation (the diocese), located at 134 Farmington Avenue in Hartford. The plaintiff alleges, inter alia, that from June, 1975, to September, 1979, Zizka counseled her "concerning spiritual and personal matters and held himself out as a person whom the plaintiff could trust and confide in during a particularly difficult period in her life. . . ." During these counseling sessions, the plaintiff, a minor at the time, alleges that Zizka sexually abused her. Counts one, two and three are against the church, the diocese and O'Connor. Count one claims that the church and the diocese are liable for the plaintiff's injury and damages based upon the theory of respondeat superior. Count two claims that the church, the diocese and O'Connor are liable for negligently hiring, training, retaining and supervising Zizka. Count three alleges negligent infliction of emotional distress against the church, the diocese and O'Connor. Counts four through eight are against Zizka and are not at issue in the present motion.
On November 10, 1997, the church, the diocese, and O'Connor filed a motion to strike the first three counts on the grounds that respondeat superior cannot be proven as a matter of law, and that the claims sounding in negligence would require the trial court to entangle *390
itself excessively in matters of religion, which is prohibited by the
"The purpose of a motion to strike is to contest . . . the legal sufficiency of the allegations of any complaint . . . to state a claim upon which relief may be granted." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)Waters v. Autuori,
"While a servant may be acting within the scope of his employment when his conduct is negligent, disobedient and unfaithful . . . that does not end the inquiry. Rather, the vital inquiry in this type of case is whether the servant on the occasion in question was engaged in a disobedient or unfaithful conducting of the master's business, or was engaged in an abandonment of the master's business." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.). Id., 210; Glucksman v. Walters,
The defendants argue that they cannot be held vicariously liable for the alleged tortious acts of Zizka, as a matter of law, because it cannot be proven that Zizka was acting within the scope of his employment. They cite cases that have held as a matter of law, when a priest is alleged to have sexually abused a minor, such action cannot be considered within the scope of his employment or in furtherance of the interests of the church. Nutt v. Norwich Roman Catholic Diocese,
The plaintiff relies upon Mullen v. Horton,
Mullen, however, is distinguishable from the present case on the same reasoning that the Mullen court used to distinguish A-G Foods, Inc. v.Pepperidge Farm, Inc., supra,
Nutt is more persuasive in its reasoning in denying a cause of action for respondeat superior based upon allegations of sexual abuse by a parish priest. In that case, the priest showed pornographic movies to two twelve year old altar boys, then molested them over a six year period when they were on out-of-town trips. Nutt v. Norwich Roman CatholicDiocese, supra,
As noted by the Appellate Court in Mullen, Nutt is distinguishable fromMullen because the alleged sexual abuse was perpetrated upon a minor. As the Appellate Court noted: "While a trier of fact could reasonably find that consensual sexual relations between two adults arising out of emotional, spiritual church sponsored counseling sessions represented a negligent and misguided effort at pastoral counseling, a trier of fact could not reasonably find that a priest's showing of pornographic films to young boys and then criminally sexually molesting them in out-of-town motel rooms merely represented a negligent and misguided effort at pastoral counseling. The facts of Nutt clearly represent a situation in which the priest wholly abandoned his pastoral duties. Thus, Nutt
represents one of those exceptional cases in which the servant's digression from duty is so clear cut that the disposition of the case is a matter of law." (Emphasis in original.) Mullen v. Horton, supra,
Mullen cannot be relied on in the present case to find the defendants liable under a theory of respondeat superior. The present case involves a minor who was sexually abused by a priest who was supposed to be counseling her through a difficult emotional period of her life. This case represents one of those "exceptional" cases where the employee's act was clearly a digression from duty and beyond the scope of employment.Nutt, like the present case, is representative of the characteristics of such cases: the victim is a minor, who legally lacks the capacity to consent to sexual relations, rendering the sexual relationship, as a matter of law, nonconsensual; the sexual abuse did not further the interests of the church; and, the church did not directly or indirectly profit from the priest's actions. See Nutt v. Norwich Roman CatholicDiocese, supra,
In ruling on a motion to strike, the court can only look to those facts alleged in the complaint, and it must *395
construe those facts most favorably to the plaintiff. Faulkner v. UnitedTechnologies Corp. , supra,
"The
The court is aware of the recently released decision of Reynolds v.Zizka, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford-New Britain at Hartford, Docket No. CV950555222S (March 5, 1998, Aurigemma, J.). This court agrees with the decisions in Nutt and Reynolds that the court's determination of an action against the movants based on their negligent supervision of a priest "would not prejudice or impose upon any of the religious tenets or practices of Catholicism." Nutt v. Norwich RomanCatholic Diocese, supra,