S.C. Supreme Court: Congregation owns its property
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, September 22, 2009
PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. – In a landmark decision, the South Carolina Supreme Court has rejected claims by the Episcopal Church (USA) to property owned by the All Saints Parish Inc., a congregation that voted to withdraw from the denomination. The court’s unanimous decision was handed down on Sept. 18.
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Decisive legal victory favors All Saints Parish, Waccamaw
Court rules in favor of congregation
The court’s two-part decision ruled:
- that the congregation’s title to its property cannot be undermined by a “trust” that the Episcopal Church (USA) has attempted to impose upon its churches; and,
- that the congregation’s decision to sever its ties to the Episcopal Church (USA) was legally valid, and the vestry (governing body) that was elected by the congregation cannot be replaced by another vestry declared by the Episcopal Church (USA) to be the “true officers.”
The Court said it made its decision using “neutral principles of law,” rather than “deference to hierarchical ecclesiastical authorities.”
Neutral principles of law
“We hereby explicitly reaffirm that, when resolving church dispute cases, South Carolina courts are to apply the neutral principles of law approach as approved by the Supreme Court of the United States … ” the South Carolina court said.
Quoting the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1979 ruling (Jones v. Wolf), the South Carolina court said, “This method ‘relies exclusively on objective, well-established concepts of trust and property law familiar to lawyers and judges. It thereby promises to free civil courts completely from entanglement in questions of religious doctrine, polity, and practice.’ Id. At 603.”
“Church disputes that are resolved under the neutral principles of law approach do not turn on the single question of whether a church is congregational or hierarchical,” said the South Carolina justices. “Rather, the neutral principles of law approach permits the application of property, corporate, and other forms of law to church disputes.”
Like the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s “trust clause” that appears in its Book of Order (G-8.0201) (1979/1983), the Episcopal Church (USA) adopted the “Dennis Canon” in 1987, purporting to impose a trust on all local church property. Judging the Dennis Canon by neutral principles of law, the South Carolina court declared that the Canon has “no legal effect on title to the All Saints congregation’s property.”
Denomination cannot claim what it does not own
“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. The Diocese [roughly the Episcopal equivalent to a presbytery in the PCUSA] did not, at the time it recorded the 2000 Notice, have any interest in the congregation’s property. Therefore, the recordation of the 2000 Notice could not have created a trust over the property.”
Turning to the question of congregational control, the court reviewed the All Saints Church history. It found that on Jan. 8, 2004, a special congregational meeting was held, and more than a two-thirds majority voted to amend the congregation’s Certificate of Incorporation and its Charter “so as to withdraw from the Diocese and the ECUSA … ”
On Jan. 9, 2005, a small group of members who remained loyal to the Diocese and the ECUSA met with the bishop and purported to elect a new vestry for the congregation. Members of the new vestry were declared “the true officers” by the bishop. This action, and a subsequent action ejecting the vestry that had been elected by the majority, was upheld by a lower court.
Right to withdraw from denomination affirmed
Reflecting on these developments, the South Carolina Supreme Court said, “We find that the trial court applied the deference approach, determined that the congregation was part of a hierarchical organization, and deferred to the Diocese’s ecclesiastical authority’s determination that members of the minority vestry were the true officers of All Saints Parish, Waccamaw, Inc. We disagree.”
“The facts presented by this case demonstrate that the congregation, in compliance with relevant statutory provisions and applicable bylaws, passed the Articles of Amendment, thus removing any reference to the ECUSA and Diocese and explicitly severing any legal relationship with those organizations. Therefore, through the application of neutral principles of law, it is clear to us that the true officers of All Saints Parish, Waccamaw, Inc. are the members of the majority vestry.”
Presbyterian Lay Committee intervention
The principles in this landmark case have direct bearing on church property issues that are being argued on behalf of PCUSA congregations. That relevance was laid explicitly before the South Carolina Supreme Court in an Amicus Curiae brief, filed by attorneys James Lehman and Lloyd J. Lunceford on behalf of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. The Lay Committee’s brief was referenced in the court’s opinion.
The Presbyterian Lay Committee has filed Amicus Curiae petitions before state supreme courts in California and South Carolina, and before the United States Supreme Court in an Episcopal case under appeal from California.
The Layman has learned that Presbyterian congregations in South Carolina have been monitoring their Supreme Court’s deliberations hoping that a definitive ruling in the All Saints case might help clear title to their property from the purported trust that was imposed on all Presbyterian congregations by the PCUSA.