Carnes v. Smith

Decision Date06 January 1976
Docket NumberNo. 30301,30301
Citation222 S.E.2d 322,236 Ga. 30
PartiesSam R. CARNES et al. v. John Oliver SMITH et al.
CourtGeorgia Supreme Court

Paul S. Weiner, Jonesboro, for appellants.

Kilpatrick, Cody, Rogers, McClatchey & Regenstein, Ernest P. Rogers, Atlanta, Thomas K. McWhorter, Jonesboro, for appellees.

HALL, Justice.

This appeal involves a dispute over church property between the local members of the Noah's Ark Methodist, now Independent, Church and the general church. The United Methodist Church. The facts are undisputed. Noah's Ark Methodist Church was established in 1852, when the property on which the church now stands was deeded to the named individuals as 'trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Mount Pleasant Academy . . . their Successors in office as such forever in fee simple.' From that time until 1969, the local church had continued as a connectional church of The United Methodist Church or its predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church. During this period, Noah's Ark had contributed funds to the parent church, had sent delegates to participate in conferences, had accepted pastors assigned to it by the general church, had held itself out as a participating member of the Methodist Church, and had been organized and functioned according to the laws and rules of The United Methodist Church and the church discipline.

The local church's dissatisfaction with the general church stemmed from the refusal of the local bishop and district superintendent to respond to the church's 1961 resolution requesting a full time pastor. The members wished to make Noah's Ark a single rather than two-church charge that shared a pastor with a neighboring congregation. The bishop's refusal was based on the concern that such a small church, consisting of less than one hundred members, would not be able to support a full time pastor financially. The matter continued unresolved until 1969 when the local trustees voted to withdraw from the general church, and submitted a petition to that effect, signed by forty-one church members, to the Superintendent of the Griffin District. The representatives of The United Methodist Church, though they respected the right of the members to withdraw from the general church, maintained that the local church property remained part of the parent organization to which it was entrusted, and that the new Noah's Ark Methodist Church (Independent) had no right to its use or the use of the local name. However, the church members continued to use the property, and steadfastly refused to allow the superintendent to address them and to accept the new pastor assigned to their charge.

After the sheriff was called to remove the superintendent from the church one Sunday, he promised to allow the courts to resolve the property dispute. Thereafter an equitable petition was filed on behalf of The United Methodist Church by the Griffin district superintendent, the bishop, and others against the trustees of Noah's Ark from appropriating the property and name of the local church. Both parties moved for summary judgment; the trial court granted the motion of the plaintiff United Methodist Church and enjoined the Noah's Ark trustees from any further use of the local property and the local name.

1. The defendant trustees of the Noah's Ark Church have appealed. They claim the court erred in granting the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and denying their own based on this court's decision in Presbyterian Church in U.S. v. Eastern Heights Presbyterian Church, 225 Ga. 259, 167 S.E.2d 658 (1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1041, 90 S.Ct. 680, 24 L.Ed.2d 685 (1970), where we held there was no longer an implied trust theory in Georgia. The trustees contend that without an implied trust, the property must be awarded to the legal title holders, in this case as in Presbyterian Church, the trustees of the local church.

The United Methodist Church, however, relies on the fact that Noah's Ark has been a connectional church from its inception in 1852 and is thus subject to the Book of Discipline, the constitution of The United Methodist Church. The discipline makes clear that church property is held by local trustees for the benefit of the general church. Presbyterian Church, it argues, merely holds that there is no implied trust arising solely from a connectional church relationship, and that the property should go to the local trustees only where 'there (is) no other basis for a trust in favor of the general church. . . .' 225 Ga. 259, 260, 167 S.E.2d 659.

It is clear and uncontroverted from the testimony and the law of the church as contained in the Book of Discipline, which is included in the record as an exhibit, that The United Methodist Church is connectional or hierarchical 1 in structure. Discipline, Ch. 4, p. 151; United Methodist Church v. St. Louis, etc., Methodist Church, 150 Ind.App. 574, 276 N.E.2d 916, 52 A.L.R.3d 311 (1971); Trustees of Peninsula Annual Conference v. Spencer, 40 Del.Ch. 418, 183 A.2d 588 (1962); Clay v. Crawford, 298 Ky. 654, 183 S.W.2d 797 (1944). This means that the local church is a part of the whole body of the general church and is subject to the higher authority of the organization and its laws and regulations.

In Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 20 L.Ed. 666 (1871), the United States Supreme Court considered a dispute between two factions of a local church as to which group had the right to use the church property. The court ruled, although courts could not inquire into ecclesiastical questions 2 but must accept as final the rulings of the highest church judicatory on those matters, 3 that the courts were the proper fora for determining property disputes. 4 The court held that the disputed church property therefore belonged to the local church members who adhered to the 'acknowledged organism by which the body is governed. . . . The minority in choosing to separate themselves into a distinct body, and refusing to recognize the authority of the governing body, can claim no rights in the property from the fact that they had once been members of the church or congregation.' 5 Watson v. Jones, supra at 725. By this principle of resolving property disputes as laid down in Watson, the law implies a trust upon the local church property for the benefit of the general church where there is a connectional relationship. 6

The Georgia courts until 1969, however, had taken 'the (English) view that such a trust is conditioned upon the general church's adherence to its tenets of faith and practice as existed when the local church affiliated with it and that an abandonment of, or departure from, such tenets is a diversion from the trust, which the civil courts will prevent.' Presbyterian Church in U.S. v. Eastern Heights Presbyterian Church, 224 Ga. 61, 68, 159 S.E.2d 690, 695 (1968), rev'd 393 U.S. 440, 89 S.Ct. 601, 21 L.Ed.2d 658 (1969). This court then went on to affirm in Presbyterian Church the trial court's judgment granting the church property to the local dissidents based on the jury's finding that the general church had 'substantially abandoned' its original tenets.

The United States Supreme Court reversed stating that Georgia's departure-from-doctrine qualifications to the implied trust rule 7 violated the First Amendment by demanding an inquiry into church doctrine and practice, and that the civil courts must resolve church property ownership by employing only 'neutral principles of law, developed for use in all property disputes, which can be applied without 'establishing' churches to which property is awarded.' Presbyterian Church v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 449, 89 S.Ct. 601, 606, 21 L.Ed.2d 658 (1969). (Emphasis supplied).

On remand, this court held that if the departure-from-doctrine element could 'play no role in any future judicial proceedings,' 8 the 'entire theory must fall.' 9 Presbyterian Church v. Eastern Heights Presbyterian Church, 225 Ga. 259, 260, 167 S.E.2d 658 (1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1041, 90 S.Ct. 680, 24 L.Ed.2d 685 (1970). The property was awarded to the local churches based on the legal title reflected in their respective deeds. 10 'There was no other basis for a trust in favor of the general church, none being created by the deeds on the property, implied under the statutes on this State (Code §§ 108-106, 108-107), or required by the constitution of the general church.' 225 Ga. 259, 260, 167 S.E.2d 659. (Emphasis supplied). This court therefore left open the possibility of an implied trust in favor of a general church where factors other than the mere connectional relationship between a local and general church were present.

Reliance on such other factors was generally sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court in Maryland & Virginia Eldership of the Churches of God v. Church of God at Sharpsburg, Inc., 396 U.S. 367, 90 S.Ct. 499, supra (1970). Since the Maryland Court of Appeals 11 had resolved the property dispute without 'inquiry into religious doctrine,' there was no violation of the First Amendment; hence, there was no federal question and the appeal was dismissed.

The Maryland opinion, so approved, is thus instructive as to what 'neutral principles of law,' may appropriately be considered. It is especially so because Maryland, like Georgia since the Presbyterian Church case, has no implied trust doctrine. Maryland and Virginia Eldership of the Church of God v. Church of God at Sharpsburg, Inc., supra, vacated and remanded 393 U.S. 528, 89 S.Ct. 850, 21 L.Ed.2d 750, aff'd, 254 Md. 162, 254 A.2d 162 (1969), appeal dismissed per curiam, 396 U.S. 367, 90 S.Ct. 499, 24 L.Ed.2d 582 (1970).

The Sharpsburg case involved competing claims to church property by the general Eldership and two local dissident churches that had been members of the Eldership. The court, in deciding the dispute, looked to the language of the deeds, applicable...

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