NY Appellate Court Refuses To Adjudicate Validity of Hindu Marriage Rites

In Madireddy v. Madireddy, (NY App. Div., Oct. 6, 2009), a New York state appellate court dismissed a divorce complaint because the case required the civil courts to determine whether the parties' were validly married in a Hindu ceremony in India in 1952. The court concluded that determining the validity of the alleged marriage required analysis of "the various and customary rites, customs, and practices of the Hindu religion of a particular caste in a particular region." The trial court was without jurisdiction to settle a religious controversy that could not be resolved by the application of neutral principles of law. [Thanks to Eugene Volokh via Religionlaw for the lead.]