Court denies Lancaster appeal request
By Edward Terry, The Layman, April 8, 2010
The Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) congregation in Lancaster, N.Y. has shifted from hoping to appeal its case in the state’s highest court to weighing its options moving forward.
On March 30, the N.Y. Court of Appeals denied Lancaster Presbyterian Church’s request for an appeal. The 188-year-old congregation had been battling since 2008 with the Presbytery of Western New York for the right to depart the Presbyterian Church (USA) with its property.
Lancaster left the largest American Presbyterian denomination in 2008 to join the more conservative EPC. It then sought a declaration from the courts that it holds title to its real and personal property, as well as a restraining order to protect its property during court proceedings. The presbytery responded with an administrative commission, formed to resolve the conflict.
In December 2008, the New York Supreme Court (which is not the state’s highest court) ruled that an express and implied trust existed on the property for the PCUSA. Lancaster appealed two months later, and the appellate division of the court upheld the earlier decision.
In December 2009, Lancaster requested an appeal to New York’s highest court. With the March 30 denial, Lancaster’s attorney Lisa T. Sofferin said the congregation will need some time to consider its options.
Prior to the March 30 rejection, the recent filing of an appeal request by another New York congregation had given the congregation some hope for having its case heard. Even though the legal arguments differ somewhat from Lancaster’s, the Church of Ridgebury’s appeal request filed in March deals with similar issues. Ridgebury is squaring off with Hudson River Presbytery over a similar dispute.
A main argument in both cases is that the denomination’s so-called “trust clause” was adopted after the congregations were formed, and therefore their property cannot be claimed in trust for the denomination without specific action to grant such a trust. Both cases raise questions about the statutory construction of New York’s Religious Corporations Law (Section 24). Lancaster’s appeal request argued that settling the issue is of great public importance.
“The statute applies to all pre-1828 Presbyterian churches as well as churches of other denominations,” the request for appeal states. “Worshipers at churches that were established prior to 1828 have relied upon, and should be entitled to rely upon RCL 24 to protect the ownership and control of their property. They can no longer do so based upon the decision in this case.”
In its opposition to the request for appeal, attorneys for the presbytery and PCUSA used the Ridgebury case and a similar previous judgment that favored the denomination. The PCUSA’s defense also pointed to key cases including Jones v. Wolf and First Presbyterian Church of Schenectady v. United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
The presbytery’s defense argued that Lancaster was a participating member of the PCUSA, and therefore subject to its trust clause.
“The Appellate Division’s decisions involved a straightforward application of existing law,” Western New York’s opposition stated. “None of the grounds for leave to appeal are met here.
Layman calls and e-mails to the Presbytery of Western New York’s stated clerk were not returned. Lancaster’s attorney, however, was available to comment on the court’s rejection of the appeal request.
“The outcome of our case is not supported by well-settled substantive or procedural law,” Sofferin said. “The Court of Appeals in the Schenectady (case) held, at a time when there were no denominational trust clauses, that the failure to comply with Section 24 was, at the very least, evidence that the local church did not intend to hold its property in trust. While we think that Section 24 precludes a finding of a trust, express or implied, at the very least the absence of compliance with Section 24, which is evidence of the lack of intent, raised a question of fact which should have precluded summary judgment in favor of the PCUSA. Nevertheless, the disposition in our case, where every court refused to address the application of Section 24 to a denomination trust clause firmly establishes that the courts in New York are intent on resolving these cases summarily and always in favor of the denomination.”
Lancaster also argues that the courts, in the interest of building “a body of trust law for church property cases favoring the denomination,” have uniformly granted summary judgment despite disputed issues of fact. Had the case been presented to a jury, Sofferin said, it would have been more likely to favor the congregation’s argument.
In a previous news release about the case, the presbytery declared that it hoped to reach an amicable settlement that would allow Lancaster to continue to worship in its property. A page on the presbytery’s Web site dedicated to the case reports that the administrative commission and Lancaster session met March 2 to discuss a proposal for dismissal with property.
Lancaster, which is located 15 miles east of Buffalo, N.Y., continues to worship as an EPC congregation in its contested property. The congregation is best known for “The Lancaster Affirmation” in 1998, which declared its resolve to uphold the confessions of the church. In 2008, the 500-member church voted 243-0 to withdraw from PCUSA in favor of the EPC.