Bentle v. Ulay

• Decision Date: 30 December 1910
• Docket Number: No. 6,947.,6,947.
• Citation: 93 N.E. 459,46 Ind.App. 660
• Parties: BENTLE et al. v. ULAY et al.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

46 Ind.App. 660

93 N.E. 459

BENTLE et al.

v.ULAY et al.

No. 6,947.¹

Appellate Court of Indiana, Division No. 2.

Dec. 30, 1910.

Appeal from Superior Court, Vanderburgh County; A. Gilchrist, Judge.

Action between Jerome D. Ulay and others and William Bentle, Sr., and others. From a judgment for Jerome D. Ulay and others, William Bentle, Sr., and others appeal. Transferred to Supreme Court, with recommendations.

Wm. Reister, W. C. Caldwell, and Geo. W. Shaw, for appellants. John M. Gault, J. E. Williamson, W. H. Hill, H. D. Henkle, and C. B. Kessinger, for appellees.

ROBY, C. J.

The questions involved in this appeal have been discussed at some extent by both the Appellate and Supreme Courts. Ramsey v. Hicks, 44 Ind. App. 490, 87 N. E. 1091, 89 N. E. 597;Ramsey v. Hicks, 174 Ind. -, 91 N. E. 344.

Ordinarily the conclusion announced by the Supreme Court would be followed at this time without remark, but the principles involved are so important and the last decision so revolutionary that in accordance with a mandatory legislative requirement we must transfer the case at bar to the Supreme Court, with the recommendation that its decision in the case of Ramsey be overruled.

The absolute separation of church and state is a fundamental principle. Religious liberty is guaranteed to the individual. There is no constitutional provision safeguarding religious denominations except through the persons composing them, and the absolute freedom of the individual to believe and worship as his conscience dictates is amply declared. No coercion of religious belief can lawfully exist. It matters not whether the means employed be torture to the body, deprivation of property, or other force, it is unlawful; nor does it matter by whom attempted, the law will not tolerate it; a religious denomination has no more right to coerce its members, or any of them, than one individual has to coerce another.

The opinion of the Supreme Court in Ramsey v. Hicks, supra, proceeds upon the theory that the state discharges its full duty by keeping “hands off.” It would be exactly the same thing to hold that the state does its full duty if it does not itself despoil its subjects. The adoption of such a standard would leave every individual at the mercy of business or other associates. It is, however, the duty of the state not only to abstain from wrongdoing itself, but to protect each citizen from the depredation of others; so long as the difference is one of mere belief it is passive, but the moment that any combination or society, under the pretext of religion or religious observance, undertakes to imprison one of its members or deprive him of his property or of his share in or use of the common property, then the state becomes actively interested.

The opinion in the case under examination contains the statement that “no personal or pecuniary rights are involved in this controversy.” It would be difficult for the members of the Cumberland Church to believe it. In the same connection it is said that the action taken by the general assembly “was purely ecclesiastical, and its effect upon the church property was resultant and consequential.”

It is conceded that the effect was resultant. It was indeed necessarily resultant and could not fail to transfer the property of the Cumberland Church to the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., and when the ownership to real estate is in question and such action with its resultant consequence is relied upon as a link in a chain of title, it becomes a matter for the civil courts exactly as was the case in Smith v. Pedigo, 145 Ind. 361, 33 N. E. 777, 44 N. E. 363, 19 L. R. A. 433, 32 L. R. A. 838, and in White Lick, etc., v. White Lick, etc., 89 Ind. 136, and in all other cases where property rights are at stake.

That the question of doctrine will be determined by the civil courts when necessary to the settlement of property rights has been too often declared in this state to be now denied. See authorities cited in Ramsey v. Hicks, 44 Ind. App. 490, 512 to 519, 87 N. E. 1091, 89 N. E. 597. To hold otherwise would be to permit persons to be deprived of property without due process of law, and hence in violation of both state and federal Constitutions.

It was necessary to the decision in Ramsey v. Hicks, supra, to in terms overrule Hatfield v. De Long, 156 Ind. 207, 59 N. E. 483, 51 L. R. A. 751, 83 Am. St. Rep. 194. The opinion in the case overruled was prepared by a judge distinguished not only for his intellectual attainments, but for his integrity and regard for judicial properties. Three present members of the Supreme Court participated in that decision.

The decision last made is also in conflict with the following cases. Smith v. Pedigo, 145 Ind. 361, 33 N. E. 777, 44 N. E. 363, 19 L. R. A. 433, 32 L. R. A. 838;White Lick, etc., v. White Lick, etc., 89 Ind. 136;Gaff et al. v. Greer et al., 88 Ind. 122, 45 Am. Rep. 449. These cases are not distinguishable upon the point in issue. They are cases in which a majority in a church possessing a congregational form of government undertook to change doctrine and hold common property over the objection of a minority, and the law was declared to be that, “the title to the property of a divided church is in that part of the organization which is acting in harmony with its own law; and the ecclesiastical laws, usages, customs, principles, and practices, which were accepted and adopted by the church before the division took place, constitute the standard for determining which of the contesting parties is in the right.” An attempt is made to distinguish these cases, based upon the fact that the Cumberland Church has a system of judicature.

The case of Watson v. Jones, 80 U. S. 679, 20 L. Ed. 666, is a leading case upon the subject and contains a classification which has been generally adopted. An item thereof is as follows: “The third is where the religious congregation or ecclesiastical body holding the property is but a subordinate member of some general church organization, in which there are superior ecclesiastical tribunals with a general and ultimate power of control, more or less complete, in some supreme judicatory over the whole membership of that general organization.” While this case is not cited in the opinion under consideration, those cases which are cited follow and depend upon it. Justice Miller said in the course of his opinion, that “the case before us is one of this class, growing out of a schism which has divided the congregation and its officers, and the presbytery and synod and which appeals to the courts to determine the right to the use of the property so acquired.”

It thus appears that Watson v. Jones does not authorize a majority to change doctrine and appropriate common property over the objection of a minority. It held that a schism which divided a congregation and had been appealed to a church court and judicially determined there would not be reinvestigated by the civil courts, but that they would adopt the decision of the church court as final. Doctrine can only be changed and common property held by conforming to the strict law of the church, whatever its form of government.

The question involved in the Ramsey Case and in the case at bar is, whether the action of the majority of the Cumberland Church was in accordance with the law of that church. It is claimed by the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., that such action was legal, and that it thereby acquired the property in controversy. It says that the union was legal, because the church court held it was legal, and that such decision is final. It denies the power of the state courts to go behind the action of the majority of the general assembly of the Cumberland Church, and the holding of the Supreme Court at this time sustains its position.

It has been heretofore pointed out by this court that no appeal was ever taken to the general assembly, for the reason that the schism arose in that body and that the doctrine of Watson v. Jones, supra, and cases following it, does not apply, there having never been either a judicial hearing or a judgment. If this is true, the appellants' title fails, as would that of a majority of a congregational church attempting to change the doctrine and transfer property by force of numbers. Had a controversy arisen in the Cumberland Church of Monroe City, and had it been duly submitted to the general assembly, acting in its judicial capacity, and been by it determined, then the doctrine of Watson v. Jones, supra, would apply and the cases following it would be in point; but even then the judgment rendered would be before the state court, as any other judgment presented in evidence would be, and, of course, subject to the same tests. If the action of the general assembly is to have the effect of a judgment, it necessarily follows that it is to be received and scrutinized as the judgment of any other court.

In Hatfield v. De Long, supra, it was held that a member of a church who had been tried by a church court might attack its judgment for fraud in selecting its members. This was but an application of the rule that fraud vitiates judgments. “Courts of equity have inherent power to annul judgments and decrees obtained by any means amounting to fraud, if it is made to appear that the successful party to the suit did something, or caused it to be done, which prevented a real contest in the trial or hearing of the case for a new hearing upon its merits.” Pepin v. Lautman, 28 Ind. App. 75, 62 N. E. 60;Gorman v. Johnston, 91 N. E. 971;Nealis, Adm'r v. Dicks, 72 Ind. 374.

The following excerpt from Broom's Legal Maxims is pertinent: “But although the judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction upon the same matter will, in general, be conclusive between the same parties, such a judgment may nevertheless be set aside on the ground of mistake, or may be impeached on the ground of fraud, for fraud, in the language of De Grey, ‘is an extrinsic collateral act,...