With the California Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Diocese of Los Angeles and The Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, Bishop of Los Angeles, said he will personally reach out to the leadership at the three congregations where the majority voted to leave in 2004 over doctrinal disputes.
In a brief interview with a reporter for The Living Church shortly after the decision was announced on Jan. 5, Bishop Bruno said he was “overjoyed” at the verdict and considered all issues at dispute to be decided in their favor. Bishop Bruno said his next step will be to initiate dialogue individually with the clergy and lay leadership of the three churches in the hope that it will lead to reconciliation and perhaps the eventual voluntary return of those congregations to The Episcopal Church.
“I want to see if they are willing to talk; to see if they want to return to The Episcopal Church,” Bishop Bruno said. He added that the offer of dialogue carried no preconditions.
“Attorneys handle legal issues,” he said. “This is now a pastoral issue.”
Last October, lawyers for the diocese and the parishes appeared before the California Supreme Court. The dispute began in 2004 after the majority of members at St. James’ Church, Newport Beach, St. David’s, North Hollywood, and All Saints’, Long Beach, voted to disaffiliate. The three subsequently accepted episcopal oversight from a bishop in the Anglican Church of Uganda. In 2005, a lower court ruled that the congregation of St. James’ was the rightful owner of the property under California law. That decision was reversed in 2007 by a three-judge appellate court panel.
The Supreme Court decision issued Monday determined that the appellate court decision was correct. The Supreme Court decision also establishes a judicial precedent requiring that all future California church property disputes be resolved in favor of a “neutral principle of law” approach. The dispute has been remanded back to the lower court for trial using that standard.
“[T]o the extent the court can resolve a property dispute without reference to church doctrine, it should apply neutral principles of law,” the justices said in their decision. “The court should consider sources such as the deeds to the property in dispute, the local church’s articles of incorporation, the general church’s constitution, canons, and rules, and relevant statutes, including statutes specifically concerning religious property.”
In a brief statement after the decision was announced, Eric Sohlgren, the lawyer retained by the departing congregations, said the leadership at St. James’ was pleased that the court had embraced a neutral principles of law approach and that the case was far from over.
“We look forward to returning to the trial court under neutral principles of law so that additional pieces of evidence can come before the trial court for decision,” he said. “In the meantime, St. James’ leadership will be considering a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Since the Supreme Court decision did not contain a judgement requiring the local congregations to turn over the property to the Diocese of Los Angeles, it will have to obtain a court order evicting the congregations if the diocese wants to take possession of the properties before a final verdict by the lower court, Mr. Sohlgren said.
Steve Waring
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1 Comment
"Neutral principles of law" (from Jones v. Wolf, a case heard by the US Supreme Court in 1979) was one of two approaches used by the CA Supreme court in their decision, but one of the 6 judges (J. Kennard) wrote that he did not think it was properly applied in this situation because in secular courts, "no principle of trust law exists that would allow the unilateral creation of a trust by the declaration of a nonowner of property that the owner of the property is holding it in trust for the nonowner" (the "Dennis Canon" of TEC's const., section 4 of canon 1.5,was written in 1979, and St. James Parish was established in 1950). However, Kennard concurred with the opinion of the court against the dissenting parishes because of another principle, "principle of government." That principle is based on Watson v. Jones, a case heard by the US Supreme Court in 1871, which distinguished between congregational churches and ones with hierarchical forms of government. As far as Kennard was concerned, the dissenting CA parishes clearly belonged to a hierarchical church (TEC) and in that case, "civil courts must accept decisions made at the highest level of the church hierarchy." If Sohlgren wants to be successful in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, he will obviously have to be prepared to deal with the "principle of government" approach as well as the "neutral principles of law" approach. The whole text of the case (Supreme Court of California Episcopal Church Cases, No. S 1 55094, Jan. 5, 2009) is available at Westlaw on-line.