Tentative summary judgment favors minority in Calif. church
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, November 30, 2006
A Superior Court judge in Los Angeles has verbally issued a summary judgment that favors the minority in a long-running and bitter dispute between two Korean congregations that have been sharing facilities at First Presbyterian Church in Torrance, Calif.
The minority – once described as being about 600 people – say they are the “true church” because they opposed the majority’s vote to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) and affiliate with the Korean Presbyterian Church in America. The membership of the majority is about 2,700 members.
The two have been in court since early 2005. While Judge Judith Collins ruled tentatively in favor of the minority on Nov. 27, the case is expected to continue until there is a trial.
Exactly what Collins ruled on Nov. 27 is yet to be clarified. She instructed the lawyers for the minority to draft a proposed summary judgment. Collins, considered one of the most influential judges in the California courts, will review that document next week and hear opposition from the lawyers representing the majority.
The chief issue is whether an administrative commission appointed by Hanmi Presbytery had the authority to take over governance of the congregation. The majority argues that the administrative commission was formed after the congregation’s leaders voted to leave the PCUSA with their property. They say the church’s charter does not include any references to the denomination or the Book of Order.
But attorneys for the minority dispute those claims. They say the administrative commission was formed in a timely fashion and that it notified the congregation that its session was no longer the governing authority. Furthermore, they argued that the session held secret meetings without a moderator in violation of the Book of Order.
The majority argue that those meetings did not violate the Book of Order because the congregation was without a senior pastor at the time.
Attorneys for the majority say they will oppose the proposed summary judgment and, if necessary, file an appeal with the California appellate court and request a stay of execution.
Collins’ ruling did not settle the property issue. Currently, both the majority and minority are using the church facilities by court order. But if her final ruling gives the presbytery’s administrative commission authority to decide who will use the property, the majority could lose access to the property. Based on the PCUSA’s enforcement of its property trust clause in the Book of Order, the administrative commission would likely allow only the minority (“the true church”) to use the building.
The denomination’s lawyers view the Torrance case as one their most important property disputes because the congregation was the largest Korean Church in the PCUSA. They fear the loss of the property could be an incentive to other PCUSA Korean churches to leave the denomination.
The majority’s leaders at Torrance decided to leave the PCUSA for several reasons, including the roadblocks created by middle-governing bodies to block the call of a senior minister. But they also expressed concern over the denomination’s drift away from orthodoxy.