Western N.Y. property battle ends
By Edward Terry, The Layman, May 22, 2009
The battle over the Oakfield, N.Y., First Presbyterian Church property is officially over.
The remnants of the congregation that split from the Presbyterian Church (USA) two years ago dropped its appeal and surrendered the property to the Presbytery of Genesee Valley on May 19.
On May 11, the congregation was denied its latest request to appeal the 2008 judgment favoring Genesee Valley Presbytery’s claim to the Oakfield property. The congregation’s attorney, Don Nichol, was planning to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but when a majority of the congregation walked away from the property it had been fighting for, the dozen or so who remained had no more fight left in them.
Approximately 60 to 70 members of the congregation that left the PCUSA to form Oakfield Independent Presbyterian Church have split from that congregation to form Oakfield Community Bible Church. They now worship away from the disputed property, leaving only a handful of members for Oakfield Independent Presbyterian. Attempts to reach the Rev. Bill Smith, who now leads the Oakfield Community Bible Church congregation, were unsuccessful.
“We could have made a petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Nichol said. “But since most of the congregation left … those people didn’t want to return to the denomination and didn’t feel they could carry the church forward.”
Nichol, himself an elder in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church who has represented several congregations in similar property cases, assisted in surrendering the property.
“To me it’s a sad case because in essence the court by deciding what it did destroyed the local church,” Nichol said. “There’s no question that not a penny came from the presbytery. They did not put a penny into it.”
According to court documents, the Oakfield congregation on April 29, 2007, voted 69-5 to disassociate from the Presbytery of Genesee Valley and PCUSA and to amend the certificate of incorporation to “confirm that no property of the Church, real or personal, is subject to any trust other than for its members.” The congregation also voted 72-2 to allow the courts to decide who owns the building.
On Jan. 8, 2008, the court ruled in favor of the presbytery. In his decision, Judge Robert Noonan wrote “in the case of schism such as that occurring within the Oakfield congregation, the regional presbytery is charged with the duty of awarding the property to the faction m(o)st closely identified with PCUSA … While the other segment of the Presbyterian constitution, The Book of Confessions, may inform the faithful as to matters of church doctrine, The Book of Order is clear and controlling on issues of organization and property.”