CA Ct App Overturns Church Property Decision

[Friedman, Howard M.]

Thanks-that does seem to be the answer.

 

*************************************
Howard M. Friedman 
Disting. Univ. Professor Emeritus
University of Toledo College of Law
Toledo, OH 43606-3390 
Phone: (419) 530-2911, FAX (419) 530-4732 
E-mail: howard.friedman at utoledo.edu 
************************************* 

________________________________

From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Hassler,
Jeffrey (student)
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 2:32 PM
To: religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: CA Ct App Overturns Church Property Decision

 

Prof. Friedman asked "While some media reports say that the decision 

involved 3 breakaway parishes, the opinion appears to only relate to one


of the parishes-- St. James Parish in Newport Beach. Does anyone have 

an explanation for the discrepancy?"

 

The best answer I could find was in an unpublished opinion located at 

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/G036730.PDF and excerpted 

in relevant part below.

 

It appears to me that they weren't technically consolidated, but were 

similar enough that the judges saw fit to consolidate the analysis.

 

Best,

 

Jeff Hassler

 

 

-----------------

 

This appeal, G036730, arises out of the same basic facts as set forth in
the
opinion we publish concurrently, Episcopal Church Cases (June __, 2007,
G036096,

G036408, G036868) ___ Cal.App.4th ___. The published opinion involves a
Newport
Beach parish. This case involves two local parishes from Los Angeles
County (also of
the Los Angeles Diocese of the Episcopal Church) who have also chosen to
disaffiliate
themselves from the Diocese and national church. The two parishes are in
Long Beach
(All Saints) and North Hollywood (St. David's). In each instance the Los
Angeles
Diocese filed suit to establish that the property held by the local
parish corporations was
held in trust for the Diocese. Normally, the two cases would have been
considered by the
Superior Court of Los Angeles County, but one of the directors of All
Saints in Long
Beach is Justice Fred Woods of the Second Appellate District, so the two
cases were
transferred to the Superior Court of Orange County, where they were
considered together
with the case involving the Newport Beach parish considered in the
published opinion.

As we note in the published opinion, Justice Woods authored Korean
United Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of the Pacific (1991) 230
Cal.App.3d 480
(Korean United), a case which, ironically, supports the position of the
Diocese as against
the local parish. To the credit of the Korean United court generally,
that opinion was the
first opinion in decades from the intermediate appellate court to
actually follow
established California Supreme Court precedent (see id. at pp. 500-503).

There is very little to add regarding the two Los Angeles County
parishes
that is factually different from the Newport Beach parish considered in
the published
opinion, except perhaps for the interesting, but ultimately irrelevant,
historical detail that
at a 1979 annual convention of the Los Angeles Diocese, representatives
of both churches
had a say in the adoption of a diocesan canon declaring that all parish
property would
revert to the Diocese upon dissolution of a parish. As we show in the
published opinion,
however, the dispositive fact is that the "general" Episcopal church
expressly provided, in
a "governing instrument" (specifically Canon I.7(4)) for a trust in the
property of local
parish corporations who were, at that time, clearly "members" of the
general church.
Under section 9142, subdivision (c)(2) of the Corporations Code, that is
enough to
enforce a trust against the local parish property. Moreover, even
without section 9142,
subdivision (c)(2), the common law of California as established by the
California

Supreme Court was that the courts should defer to the organizational
structure of a church
(be it hierarchical or non-hierarchical) in deciding questions of the
use of church
property.

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