Legal News

Court: Local Church That Split From National Must Forfeit Property

By Dan Slater

St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach, Calif., didn’t like a 2003 decision by the national Episcopal church to consecrate a gay man as bishop of New Hampshire. So it split.

Now, following a unanimous court ruling yesterday that lawyers say could apply to other denominations as well, it looks like St. James must also part ways with its property. The ruling, from California’s Supreme Court, reportedly follows a decision last month by 700 conservative Episcopal congregations to form a separate church in North America. Here’s the L.A. Times report.

Justice Ming W. Chin wrote: “When it disaffiliated from the general church, the local church did not have the right to take the church property with it.” (Here’s the opinion.)

Property law mavens might say, “Wait a minute, didn’t St. James own its church?” Indeed, notes the LAT, the parish argued that it had title to the property and had purchased additional parcels in its own name over the years with funds donated by members.

But the court reportedly held that, although the deeds showed the local church owned the property, the parish had agreed to be part of the greater Episcopal Church of the United States and to be bound by that church’s rules. The church apparently added a section to a canon in 1979 that said parishes held property in trust for the greater church. “The local church agreed and intended to be part of a larger entity and to be bound by the rules and governing documents of that greater entity,” Chin wrote.

Notably, Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote separately to say that no secular institution would be permitted to take someone’s property that way. “This result is constitutional, but only because the dispute involves religious bodies and then only because [the legal doctrine at issue], permissible under the 1st Amendment, allows a state to give unbridled deference to the superior religious body or general church.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 06, 2009 (boomark / email).