National appeal planned for money to help defray legal costs in church property cases
By Patrick Jean, The Layman Online, October 29, 2007
LAKE JUNALUSKA, N.C. – The Presbytery of Western North Carolina will make a national appeal for financial contributions to help defray its legal costs in church property ownership cases.
The action was spurred by two cases, one in which the presbytery is the defendant and a pending one in which it will be the plaintiff.
Presbytery commissioners, acting on a recommendation from the coordinating council, approved the plan at their stated meeting Oct. 27 in Lake Junaluska. It was passed by unanimous voice vote without discussion.
The plan is aimed at preventing the presbytery’s mission work from being affected by legal costs, the coordinating council’s recommendation stated. It calls for the council to present an implementation plan for the appeal at the presbytery’s next stated meeting Jan. 26, 2008.
The recommendation states that the legal costs being targeted are “court actions for Montreat and other churches.” The presbytery is facing two property ownership lawsuits:
- The first was filed July 2 against the presbytery by First Presbyterian Church in Marion, which is seeking a ruling that it, and not the presbytery or the Presbyterian Church (USA), owns its property.
- The second will occur when the presbytery files suit against Montreat Evangelical Presbyterian Church, seeking a ruling that Montreat Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) owns the property that the two congregations share. Presbytery commissioners authorized the pending legal action at their stated meeting Oct. 26.
Protecting mission work
The idea came from several members of the presbytery, the Rev. Bobbi White, Western North Carolina general presbyter, said in an interview after the stated meeting.
“A couple of people had suggested to the presbytery that we needed to have a fund that people could contribute to help with the legal expenses of Marion and Montreat, so we wouldn’t take mission dollars away from that area,” she said. “Because we are a presbytery of many small churches, we want to put what dollars we’ve got toward mission and not cut back on church support.”
Court costs are not included in the presbytery’s budget, so the presbytery would have to go into reserves to pay legal expenses, White said. “We have reserves that we could go into, but they would need to be replaced later,” she said.
The presbytery doesn’t have a specific fundraising target because it doesn’t know how much the Marion and Montreat court cases will cost, White said.
The plan that the coordinating council will present to the presbytery in January could include a fund-raising letter that would be sent out, White said.
“We don’t have the committee together to put together that plan yet because we were waiting on presbytery approval,” she said.
Precedent in Alabama
Saturday’s action makes Western North Carolina at least the second PCUSA presbytery this year to authorize a letter seeking funds to help pay legal costs in a church property ownership lawsuit.
Earlier this year, the Presbytery of North Alabama sought financial assistance in fighting the lawsuit from Alabama’s two other presbyteries – Sheppards & Lapsley and South Alabama – as well as the Synod of Living Waters and the PCUSA’s Office of the General Assembly. North Alabama Presbytery was the defendant in a property ownership lawsuit filed Jan. 29 by Central Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Ala.
North Alabama’s executive presbyter, the Rev. Warner Durnell, said he wanted the presbyteries, synod and Office of the General Assembly to recognize that, “There are interests that we share across the state, across the region, across the church that were at stake here.”
“At the time of which this whole thing started, we had no idea what the costs were going to be,” Durnell told The Layman Online in a story posted June 11. “As a matter of fact, we only budgeted about $10,000 thinking that that would more than cover our costs. That was certainly an extraordinarily low projection.”
In a letter to South Alabama Presbytery, he estimated average daily legal costs exceeding $600. “Our attorneys have apprised us that projected costs of appeal before the Alabama state Supreme Court and then possibly on to the U.S. federal court could well exceed $100,000,” the letter stated.
The Synod of Living Waters provided $10,000 to North Alabama Presbytery, Sheppards & Lapsley Presbytery loaned $8,000 and South Alabama Presbytery gave $5,000. The PCUSA was unable to assist because of a limited budget for litigation expenses, Durnell said.
Central Presbyterian Church and North Alabama Presbytery reached a settlement May 24 in mediation that let the Huntsville church leave the PCUSA with its property in exchange for paying $250,000 to the presbytery by the end of 2010.
Patrick Jean is a staff writer for The Layman and The Layman Online. He can be reached at pjean@www.layman.org.