Lay Committee files
Ga. Supreme Court brief
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, October 21, 2009
ATLANTA, Ga. – “To decide who owns property here,” said the Presbyterian Lay Committee (PLC) in an Oct. 15 Amicus Curiae brief before the Georgia Supreme Court, “the Court should apply the rules that would govern any other case involving a challenge to a titleholder’s ownership by another party claiming that the property is held in trust for the challenger’s benefit.”
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Employing arguments similar to those that it made successfully before the South Carolina Supreme Court, the PLC called upon the Georgia high court to apply “neutral principles of law” thereby overturning a lower court ruling favoring the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta against the Timberridge Presbyterian Church.
‘Neutral principles of law’ vs. ‘Mode of church government’
The neutral principles of law method of adjudicating church property disputes was endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1979. Georgia Supreme Court opinions have also affirmed it. This approach binds a religious corporation to the same criteria that secular corporations must meet when making property claims.
“The [U.S.] Supreme Court has held that when religious organizations invoke the power of a civil court to decide the secular question of property title, the court may subject religious organizations to the same legal rules that apply to everyone else, even if doctrinal authorities might decide the matter differently,” said the PLC.
In the lower court, the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta claimed the Timberridge congregation’s property using a “mode of church government” argument. The PCUSA’s mode of church government is “hierarchical,” said the presbytery, citing a clause in the PCUSA constitution stating that all local church property, regardless of how it may have been titled, is held in trust for the denomination.
That “unilateral declaration of a trust,” said the PLC brief, would never stand were it asserted by a secular corporation. Georgia law does not authorize “a church ‘hierarchy’ to create a trust interest for itself in property owned by a local church, simply by saying so,” said the PLC. “Even if labeled a church canon or constitution, a document created by an allegedly hierarchical body remains a creation of the beneficiary rather than a written expression of unambiguous intent by the trustor. That type of document would not suffice to create a trust under the law applied to other property holders and claimants.”
Civil courts must avoid doctrinal disputes
“Allowing courts to determine whether a denomination’s ‘mode of church government’ is sufficiently hierarchical to warrant judicial deference would entangle those courts in questions of religious doctrine,” said the PLC. Within the PCUSA, there are numerous interpretations of the Book of Order that have given rise to internal doctrinal disputes. In deferring to the assertion by denominational lawyers that the PCUSA is “hierarchical,” a view that is widely contested within the denomination, the lower court effectively weighed in on one side of this internecine religious controversy. The PLC believes the lower court erred by intervening into church matters, a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
“When civil courts attempt to resolve the validity of an assertion of hierarchical polity or to interpret the general church’s ‘mode of church government’ by deferring to its claim of a trust in its own favor, government embroilment in controversies over religious doctrine is pronounced,” said the PLC.
Civil courts must not favor particular church polities
“Any form of judicial deference to a religious organization’s assertion of hierarchical power in a property dispute would unconstitutionally favor religious organizations with multiple tiers,” said the PLC. “The Constitution forbids both a rule that favors one side of a dispute and a rule that favors one form of religious organization.”
Quoting from a 1984 ruling by the New York Court of Appeals, the PLC said, “by supporting the hierarchical polity over other forms and permitting local churches to lose control over their property, the deference rule may indeed constitute a judicial establishment of religion.”
Quoting from the 1979 US Supreme Court ruling, the PLC said, “The neutral principles approach ‘obviates entirely the need for an analysis or examination of ecclesiastical polity …’”
Trusts must be ‘legally cognizable’
The U.S. Supreme Court provides that a trust favoring a denomination may be established over member churches’ property, but that “any recitation of trust” would have to be “embodied in some legally cognizable form.”
State law determines if, in fact, a purported trust is “embodied in some legally cognizable form.” The primary criterion in Georgia law, as in virtually all other states, is that the owner of the property must consent, explicitly and in writing, to the imposition of that trust.
“The general law of trusts could not be clearer,” said the PLC. “A trust must arise from an action by the settler expressing clear and unambiguous intent to create a trust for another.”
Quoting the South Carolina Supreme Court, the PLC said, “It is an axiomatic principle of law that a person or entity must hold title to property in order to declare that it is held in trust for the benefit of another or transfer legal title to one person for the benefit of another.”
“A statement by a purported beneficiary (the PCUSA) unilaterally asserting a trust in its own favor over the property of another legal owner is not ‘legally cognizable’ under the principles applicable to other parties – certainly not in Georgia,” said the PLC.
No consent given
Citing Timberridge documents, including its articles of incorporation, bylaws, minutes of congregational meetings and deeds, PLC told the court that Timberridge had never explicitly stated in writing its consent to a trust in favor of the denomination.
Attorneys for the PCUSA and Greater Atlanta Presbytery argue that explicit language in local church documents is not necessary because a trust on local church property is “implied” by virtue of the fact that the local church is a part of the denomination.
Citing a previous ruling of the Georgia Supreme Court (Eastern Heights, 225 Ga. at 260, 167 S.E.2nd at 659), the PLC stated “On remand, this Court held that the entire theory of an implied trust must fall.”
Georgia Supreme Court hearings on the Timberridge case were held on Oct. 19. By statute, the Court is required to rule by the end of its January term.