PALM DESERT — Local parishes wanting to disaffiliate from the over-arching church organization should proceed cautiously.
The California Supreme Court indicated strongly during oral arguments Wednesday that parishes don’t keep their property once they leave. That stays with the greater church based on canons that place all parish property in trust when the local parish originally joins the overall church.
“When St. James Parish was founded, didn’t [it] agree to be bound by the canons and constitution of the higher church?” Justice Ming Chin asked a lawyer representing a Newport Beach parish that left the Episcopal Church in 2004. “And don’t those canons make clear that if the lesser church leaves the greater church, the property stays with the greater church?”
Eric Sohlgren, an attorney with Irvine’s Payne & Fears who argued the case for St. James Parish, disagreed. But it appeared the entire panel of justices disagreed.
The dispute began in 2003 when the national Episcopal Church made the controversial decision to ordain V. Gene Robinson, who is openly gay, as a bishop in New Hampshire. The ordination caused a huge schism within the Episcopal Church and led parishioners at St. James Parish, founded in 1949, to vote to disaffiliate and join the Anglican Church of Uganda.
St. James claimed to have held title to its property since 1950, but the national church insisted that Episcopal canons require local parishes to be “forever held” to the authority and rules of the greater church. One of those canons puts the property of local parishes in trust for the overall church and the local diocese, in this case the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
The national debate centers on whether so-called hierarchical churches — such as the Episcopal Church — can unilaterally appropriate for themselves property purchased by their affiliates, under what is known as the hierarchical standard of ownership. Alternatively, churches can abide by the “neutral-principles-of-law” standard that requires an examination of the deeds, articles of incorporation and other documentary evidence to determine ownership. Church canons could be cited under either standard.
The U.S. Supreme Court entered the national fray in 1979 when it issued Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, which permits, but doesn’t require, state courts to use neutral principles of law when deciding church property disputes.
Justice Chin noted that almost all other states’ courts have adopted the neutral-principles-of-law standard. “Haven’t most, if not all, those cases gone against you?” Chin asked Sohlgren, who responded by saying there has been a “mix of decisions.”
Undaunted, Chin later pointed out the same thing to Los Angeles lawyer John Shiner, a partner at Holme Roberts & Owen, who represented the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, and then asked him how persuasive those rulings are for the California Supreme Court.
“Very persuasive,” Shiner answered. “Good answer,” Chin told him.
Sohlgren fared no better with Justice Carol Corrigan, who pointed out that St. James Parish congregants had put in writing that they would abide by the canons and constitution of the Episcopal Church.
“It is more like a spiritual promise,” Sohlgren responded. “Like a pledge of marriage.”
Ironically, most of the justices seemed to agree with Sohlgren that the neutral-principles-of-law standard should apply. In other words, the court needs to look at the deeds and other documents about ownership.
But Corrigan said the documents didn’t help Sohlgren. “Forever bound!” she said. “They say you will be bound by the canons and the constitution” of the Episcopal Church. “What’s the step I’m missing here?”
Sohlgren argued that no canon explicitly says local parishes’ property would revert to the bigger church upon disaffiliation. But Chief Justice Ronald George argued that there was nothing ambiguous about the parish’s decision to be “forever bound” to the higher church’s canons.
Justice Joyce Kennard expressed skepticism when Sohlgren argued that St. James could prevail even if the hierarchical standard was applied.
“I don’t see how you can prevail under [that standard],” Kennard said. “The way I understand it, the big church always wins. You lose.”
By comparison to Sohlgren, Shiner and Washington, D.C., attorney Heather Anderson, a Goodwin Procter partner who represented the Episcopal Church, had a walk in the park.
Little was said by the justices when Shiner argued that when St. James’ congregants left the church, “they took property they didn’t have title to hold. … They made a commitment to abide themselves forever more to the [Episcopal] church’s canons and constitution.”
Anderson got favorable comments from Justice Corrigan after she fielded Justice Marvin Baxter’s question about what parishes can do to protect their property if they want to affiliate with the Episcopal Church.
“They cannot join,” Anderson said. “The Episcopal Church requires that all property be held in trust for the church.”
So, Corrigan echoed, they are free to join, “but here are our rules.”
Anderson and Shiner may have lost on one point. Both favored the hierarchical church standard of ownership, but the justices seemed bent on ruling on the basis of the neutral-principles-of-law standard enunciated in Jones v. Wolf, which Sohlgren had called the “modern approach” to decide church property disputes.
“Why harken back to a different time?” Corrigan asked Anderson.
The court had arguments for the second and final day in the Indian Wells Theater on the Palm Desert campus of Cal State-San Bernardino. A ruling in Episcopal Church Cases, S155094, is due within 90 days.
