Date of the judgment |
1981.4.7 |
Case number |
1976 (O) No. 749 |
Reporter |
Minshu Vol.35, No.10, at 1369 |
Title |
Judgment on a case concerning a dispute over concrete rights and duties or legal relations in which a determination of religious doctrine or of the value of an object of faith is an essential a priori issue, and the meaning of "dispute at law" in Article 3 of the Court Organization Law |
Case name |
The Wooden Mandala Case |
Result |
Judgment of the Third Petty Bench; quashed and decision rendered by the Supreme Court |
Court of the Second Instance |
Tokyo High Court, judgment of March 30, 1976 |
Summary of the judgment |
Although a suit may take the form of a dispute over concrete rights and duties or legal relations, and although a determination of religious doctrine or of the value of an object of faith may be deemed to be no more than an a priori issue for deciding the claim, if that determination is indispensable to the suit, governs its outcome, and is the gravamen of the dispute, the suit does not constitute a "dispute at law" in the meaning of Article 3 of the Court Organization Law. |
References |
Court Organization Law, Article 3 A Jokoku Appeal was filed by the Appellant seeking reversal of the judgment handed down by the Tokyo High Court on March 3, 1976, on a claim for restitution of donated monies, Case (Ne) No. 2353 (1975) of the Tokyo High Court. The Jokoku Appellees sought a judgment dismissing the Jokoku Appeal. |
Main text of the judgment |
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is quashed. The intermediate appeal of the Jokoku Appellees is dismissed. The costs of the intermediate appeal and of the Jokoku Appeal shall be borne by the Jokoku Appellees. |
Reasons |
On Ground (1) for Jokoku Appeal by Appellant's attorneys Irokawa Kotaro, Kawashima Takeyoshi, Okuno Hikoroku, Yoneda Tametsugi, Kashiwagi Chiaki, Matsumoto Yasuzo, Matsui Kazuhiko, Nakane Hiroshi, and Kirigaya Akira: The powers properly accorded the courts permit adjudication of "disputes at law" only in the meaning of Article 3 of the Court Organization Law, that is, disputes which relate to the existence of concrete rights and duties or legal relations between the parties and which can be finally settled by the application of law (cf. Supreme Court Case [Gyo-Tsu] No. 61 of 1964; judgment of the Third Petty Bench of February 8, 1966; Minshu Vol. 20, No. 2 at 196). Thus, the courts cannot adjudicate even a dispute over concrete rights and duties or legal relations if it is not suited to resolution by the application of law. We will now examine the above principle in relation to the case at bench, which is the case of a petition for restitution of unjust enrichment on the grounds of invalidity of a gift made in error. The substance of the errors alleged by the Jokoku Appellees is as follows: (1) The Jokoku Appellant solicited the donated monies in the present case to construct a Grand Main Temple to install an object of worship (honzon) in a high sanctuary (kaidan) therein. However, after the donations were made, it transpired that the object of worship known as a "board mandala" that the Jokoku Appellant installed in the Grand Main Temple was not that stipulated by the Nichiren Shoshu sect, namely, "the object of worship erected by Nichiren on the twelfth day of the tenth month of the second year of Koan (1279)." (2) In soliciting donations, the Jokoku Appellant claimed that completion of the Grand Main Temple would signify attainment of the time of kosen rufu (world conversion) and that the Grand Main Temple would be the High Sanctuary of True Buddhism. But when the Grand Main Temple was completed, the Jokoku Appellant declared that it did not yet signify the completion of the High Sanctuary referred to in the works "On the Three Great Secret Dharmas" (Sandaihiho sho) and "Document for Entrusting the Law Which Nichiren Propagated Throughout His Life" (Ichigo guho sho), and that kosen rufu had not yet been attained. To determine whether mistakes occurred, Point (1) above requires judgment of the religious value of an object of faith, and Point (2) above requires judgments on religious doctrines such as "completion of the High Sanctuary" and "attainment of kosen rufu." In both cases the issues, by their nature, cannot be resolved by the application of law. This suit takes the form of a dispute over concrete rights and duties or legal relations, and the determination of religious doctrine or of the value of a religious object is deemed to be no more than an a priori issue for deciding the claim. But that determination is indispensable to the suit and governs its outcome, and, moreover, the records of the suit's progress show that matters involving the determination form the gravamen both of the dispute and of the substantiation of the parties' claims in the present case. In view of these facts, the present suit is, in essence, not finally resolvable by the application of law and thus does not constitute a "dispute at law" in the meaning of Article 3 of the Court Organization Law. Thus, the Court of Appeals erred in interpretation and application of the law when it ruled that the suit of the Jokoku Appellees in the present case constitutes a dispute at law. Since those errors clearly affect the Court's conclusion, the argument of the Jokoku Appellant is reasonable, and the original decision should be quashed. Further, the hypothetical claims made by Jokoku Appellees after the completion of preliminary proceedings in the court of first instance (namely, that the gifts were revoked on grounds of fraud, or that the donations in the present case had ceased to have legal cause due to the donors' withdrawal from membership) should be dismissed in accordance with the Code of Civil Procedure, Article 255, Paragraph 1. Accordingly, the suit of Jokoku Appellees in the present case should be dismissed as not in conformity with law. There is no need to examine the other grounds for Jokoku Appeal. The judgment of the court of first instance which reached the same conclusion as the above is correct, and the intermediate appeal of the Jokoku Appellees should be dismissed. Therefore, in accordance with Articles 408, 396, 384, 96, 89, and 93 of the Code of Civil Procedure, this Court finds unanimously as stated in the Main Text of the Judgment above. The concurring opinion of Justice TERADA Jiro follows. CONCURRING OPINION OF JUSTICE TERADA JIRO The Majority Opinion has correctly set forth the substance of the mistakes which are alleged by the Jokoku Appellees to invalidate their expression of intent in contracts for the payment of monies (the gifts alleged by the Jokoku Appellees) under the form of donations in the present case. I concur with the Majority Opinion that the question of whether such errors occurred cannot be adjudicated by the courts since it requires a judgment concerning religious doctrine or the religious value of an object of faith, which issues, by their nature, cannot be settled by the application of law. However, the petition of the Jokoku Appellees in this case is a petition for restitution of unjust enrichment, which seeks return of the monies donated under the aforesaid contracts on the grounds that the contracts are invalid due to error. In other words, it is a petition for payment of monies; the aforesaid religious questions are no more than a priori issues, and it is not the purpose of the suit to conduct a religious dispute per se. Therefore, it is not correct to say that the present suit does not constitute a dispute at law in the meaning of Article 3, Paragraph 1 of the Court Organization Law, nor that the petition in this case cannot be adjudicated by the courts (cf. Supreme Court Case [O] No. 96 of 1955; judgment of the Grand Bench of June 8, 1960; Minshu Vol. 14, No. 7 at 1206). In my opinion, the above reasoning still holds good even if the religious questions which are a priori issues in a particular case are in fact the gravamen of the litigation and a decision thereon is indispensable to the suit and governs its outcome. If the courts lack jurisdiction on a priori issues decisive to the claim due to the need for religious judgments, a court cannot affirm the Jokoku Appellees' contention that errors occurred with regard to the religious issues, and thus it cannot rule that the payment of monies in the present case is invalid. (Claiming as a cause of invalidity merely that error occurred, without specifying its substance, is the same as, for example, claiming as error facts that do not constitute error.) Consequently, the petition of the Jokoku Appellees in this case, which is premised on the payment being invalid, should be dismissed as without reason. In the present case, I concur with the Majority Opinion that the hypothetical claims made by Jokoku Appellees after the completion of preliminary proceedings in the court of first instance should be dismissed. The records of the suit's progress indicate that there is no room for new arguments, and in the end, the Jokoku Appellees are claiming only items which require religious judgments as the substance of the errors that they allege invalidate the contracts for payment of monies in this case. Thus, it is clear from the Jokoku Appellees' own arguments, without any need to reexamine the facts, that their petition based on the invalidity of the payment of monies in this case is without reason. The Court of Appeals should have immediately rendered a decision of petition dismissed (intermediate appeal dismissed, in the sense stated below), and should not have referred the case back to the court of first instance by applying Article 388 of the Code of Civil Procedure. However, the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be quashed, since, when it referred the present case back to the court of first instance for further examination of the claim of error, the Court erred in its interpretation of statutes regarding the courts' jurisdiction or in its interpretation and application of Article 388 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In accordance with the above, this Court should quash the decision of the Court of Appeals and revoke the decision of the court of first instance, and should dismiss the petition of Jokoku Appellees in this case. However, because an intermediate appeal against the court of first instance's dismissal of the suit has been lodged only by Jokoku Appellees, who were the original plaintiffs, and not by Jokoku Appellant, who was the original defendant, the principle of prohibition of disadvantageous modification (cf. Article 385 of the Code of Civil Procedure) forces this Court to uphold the conclusion of the court of first instance and limit itself to dismissing the intermediate appeal of Jokoku Appellees (cf. Supreme Court Case [O] No. 737 of 1953; judgment of the Third Petty Bench of April 12, 1955; Minshu Vol. 9, No. 4 at 488). In the sense stated above, I concur with the conclusions of the Majority Opinion. Third Petty Bench of the Supreme Court |
Presiding Judge |
Justice YOKOI Daizo Justice TAMAKI Shoichi Justice TERADA Jiro |
| (This translation is provisional and subject to revision.) |