Lawsuit settlement lets church leave PCUSA with property – for $250,000
By Patrick Jean, June 11, 2007
A Huntsville, Ala., church can leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) with its property, thanks to the resolution of a lawsuit brought by the church against North Alabama Presbytery.
Church property case goes
back to October 2005 But the settlement comes with a price for Central Presbyterian Church: $250,000 to be paid to the presbytery by the end of 2010 – including $100,000 within the next 30 days, when the agreement officially closes.
The settlement, reached May 24 in mediation, ends the property ownership lawsuit that the church brought against the presbytery Jan. 29 in Madison County Circuit Court.
In exchange for its freedom, the church has to:
- Secure its $250,000 payment to the presbytery by taking a mortgage on a portion of its property.
- Acknowledge that its pastor and session did not follow the PCUSA Book of Order regarding a church’s request for dismissal from the denomination.
In exchange for letting Central Presbyterian Church go – perhaps as early as next month – the presbytery has to:
- Relinquish its right, title and interest in the church’s real and personal property.
- Agree that neither it, the Synod of Living Waters nor the PCUSA’s Office of the General Assembly will attempt to exercise jurisdiction over the church or anyone representing the church.
The lawsuit will be dismissed within three business days of the settlement’s closing. Presbytery and church leaders both look forward to that dismissal.
“I’m grateful that it was resolved as quickly as it was,” said the Rev. Warner Durnell, executive presbyter of North Alabama Presbytery. “It’s long been my hope and my prayer that we would have been able to find a way to resolve the dispute without having to await a ruling by a circuit court judge.”
“I was glad it was a settlement rather than dragging it out through the courts,” said the Rev. Dr. Randy Jenkins, pastor of Central Presbyterian Church. “I am appreciative that we were able to sit down – it took about 12 hours worth of back-and-forth stuff, but I think that was a good way to do it.”
Money, time were factors
Durnell and Jenkins agree the money and time that could have been spent in court – up to $200,000 over two years – were factors in seeking a settlement.
When Circuit Court Judge Jim Smith delayed a preliminary hearing until the end of May, Durnell saw an opportunity for negotiation.
“Anytime a presbytery is faced with the kind of issue that was presented by the Central lawsuit, it is a distraction,” he said. “It is something that certainly is in the minds of many as we’re trying to find an answer to it.”
Durnell 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. He said he wanted them 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 said. “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.
Negotiation also became a more favorable option when the presbytery considered how long it might be in court, Durnell said.
“If there was a way in which we could answer the concerns and questions that Central sought to address in the suit without having to go through litigation, that was the preferred route,” he said. “Not have to rely on a circuit court judge to make a ruling, and then perhaps a state court judge or justices making a decision, and then that being appealed to perhaps a federal court.”
Jenkins estimated his church’s legal fees could have run from $150,000 to $200,000 if it took up to two years with appeals.
“It was a stress that was underlying everything that went on at the church,” he said. “And it was an impediment to the things we needed to do physically to the building and expansion plans. But as far as ministry went, it really didn’t hinder ministry here.”
Jenkins thought his church had a good case, and was convinced the church’s deeds and Alabama’s legal precedent as a “neutral principles” state – meaning that the preferred application for settling a church property ownership case is using neutral principles of state law – would have produced a favorable verdict. But there was concern about an unfavorable ruling, such as awarding part of the property to the presbytery.
Taking that possibility and the estimated legal expenses into consideration, “We were OK with the way it came out,” Jenkins said.
But he said the resolution could have been reached sooner if the presbytery had sought mediation earlier. Lawyers for the presbytery weren’t interested in that initially, he said.
“They should have sought to talk earlier, but I’m glad it has come that way,” he said. “If it would have gone to trial, we would have had the preliminary injunction hearing this week and then who knows? Another six or eight months the hearing probably would have been scheduled for, so it would have dragged on too long.”
The church’s attorney, Roderic G. Steakley of Huntsville, and the presbytery’s attorney, Robert V. Wood Jr. of Huntsville, did not return calls and e-mails from The Layman Online seeking comment.
The negotiations begin
At a specially called meeting May 12, North Alabama Presbytery commissioners gave the presbytery’s administrative commission for Central Presbyterian Church “full and unlimited authority to settle, by mediation or otherwise, and on such terms as the commission determines, any and all claims related to” the lawsuit.
Public perception, not cost, was the primary factor in seeking a settlement, Durnell said. The fact that it went to court and was reported in the local news media was “a source of some grief, if not embarrassment,” he said.
“I mean, here we are as Christians and we can’t sit down and find a way to work through our differences. How should we expect non-believers to be able to do so?” Durnell said. “I think that was the real driving force behind wanting to seek a way of resolving things through mediation. If we had to bear additional costs and if Central had to bear additional costs, I would have imagined we would have found a way to do that. But it just didn’t seem like that was good stewardship on our part.”
On May 24, church and presbytery representatives and lawyers met with mediator Drayton Nabers Jr., former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Jenkins called him a “wise and very bright” man who encouraged each side while accurately communicating what the other side was thinking.
Negotiations began with a discussion of shared ministry, Jenkins said. He said the presbytery’s first proposal was an “everything offer” in which they controlled the church and trust.
“It went back and forth from there and became realistic in the sense that they started to come in the place where it was actually something that we could talk about constructively,” he said. “Their figures started to drop lower and lower and ours rose up a little bit.”
Jenkins said Central Presbyterian Church didn’t have a problem with the presbytery’s proposed 3½-year time frame for receiving the $250,000 from the church in exchange for dismissal with its property. After the initial $100,000 gets paid within the next 30 days, another $75,000 must be paid by Dec. 31, 2008, and the remaining $75,000 must be paid by Dec. 31, 2010.
Also negotiated – at least three or four times, Jenkins said – was the portion of the settlement in which the church acknowledged that neither its pastor nor its session followed the Book of Order regarding a church’s request for dismissal from the denomination. Agreement on the wording proved tricky, he said.
“They came up with that,” he said. “They wanted some sort of statement, I assume, that would satisfy them. The wording is rather nebulous in areas, and I think that we obviously could live with the wording and they were happy with the wording.”
The final wording reads: “The session and pastor of Central Presbyterian Church … acknowledge that they did not follow the Constitution and polity of the Presbyterian Church (USA), as set forth in the Book of Order, regarding a congregation’s request for dismissal; and that Central Presbyterian Church … did not request to be dismissed.”
Negotiations couldn’t solve everything, though. The settlement includes a sentence in which North Alabama Presbytery continues to assert “that it has jurisdiction under the Book of Order over Central Presbyterian,” while the church “denies the presbytery has any such continuing jurisdiction over it.”
The settlement also hasn’t soothed Jenkins’ feelings about the denomination his church is leaving. “I think if everybody was serious about doing ministry, the presbyteries would say, ‘You know what? Those churches that want to go and do ministry and be faithful to Christ as they feel called in another place need to go and do it,’ ” he said.
“Our denomination, the PCUSA, is not tied theologically. The unity of the PCUSA is property, and they’re trying to keep unity by exerting control over property.”
Durnell, however, is satisfied. “It was my strong opinion, and I believe that of the presbytery, that as Christians we should be able to sit down and work through our differences, find the common ground, hammer out a solution that we all can live with,” he said. “I think this is an example of where that effort was made and it resulted in something that I don’t think either side is gleeful over by any means, but it shows that as Christians, we can prayerfully work toward some way of resolving our differences without having to go to the civil courts to gain some kind of relief.”
Patrick Jean is a staff writer for The Layman and The Layman Online. He can be reached at pjean@www.layman.org.