Gibson v. Armstrong

• Decision Date: 27 July 1847
• Citation: 46 Ky. 481
• Parties: Gibson et al. v. Armstrong; Armstrong v. Gibson et al.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

46 Ky. 481

Gibson et al. v. Armstrong;

Armstrong v. Gibson et al.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

July 27, 1847

Church case. Deed. Trusts.

ERROR TO THE MASON CIRCUIT.

Robertson, Hord and Stanton for Gibson, & c.

Waller and T. M. Smith for Armstrong.

OPINION

MARSHALL CHIEF JUSTICE.

Case stated.

THIS record presents a contest between two portions of the former congregation of members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Maysville, each claiming, as a distinctly organized society or congregation, the exclusive use and control, for the purposes of worship, of the Methodist Meeting House or Church building, and the lot on which it is situated, in the city of Maysville. The opposing claims of the two parties, were brought into immediate conflict, by appointments made and published, under different authorities, for preaching and Divine worship, at the same hour of the same day, and in the same Church, by two different preachers, for each of whom the parties respectively claimed the use of the pulpit. To prevent collision and with the intent that the house should not be occupied at all, on the day referred to, John Armstrong, one of the original trustees to whom the lot had been conveyed, and holding also other official stations in the collective Church at Maysville, and being the representative of one of the contending parties, had the house fastened up; but other and more numerous officers and trustees of the other party, had the doors opened, and occupied the Church, with their preachers.

In this state of things, John Armstrong, in behalf of himself and others acting with him, filed this bill, complaining in effect of a forcible expulsion from the house, claiming that he and his associates, as members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the United States, were, together with their preacher, entitled by the terms of the deed under which the lot was held, and the building erected, to the free and undisturbed use of the house, but that the opposite party having renounced the authority of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, and entered into a new and distinct organization, under an independent jurisdiction known as the Methodist Episcopal Church South, were no longer members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, and therefore, had no rights under the deed. And he invokes the aid of the Court, for maintaining the objects and provisions of the deed, and securing to himself and associates the exclusive use of the Church at Maysville.

The complaint in the bill of Armstrong, of expulsion from the Church at Maysville, and claiming the exclusive use of the same for the " Methodist Episcopal Church in the U States," in virtue of the deed and as trustee.

The defendants, consisting principally of the four remaining trustees, and several other officers of the collective Church, not only deny the exclusive claim set up in the bill, but deny to the complainant and his associates, as an organized body or congregation, all right to the use of the Church building at Maysville, and claim the exclusive right for themselves and associates; alleging, that at an unusually large meeting of the Methodist Episcopal congregation at Maysville, held after due notice, under the authority of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States, and in pursuance of the recommendation of the Bishops of the Church, a clear majority of the members present, voted for adhering to the Methodist Episcopal Church South, which had been organized under the authority of said General Conference, whereby, and by the ascertained concurrence of so many of the absent members, as made, with the said majority of those present, a clear majority of all the members of said congregation or society, the Maysville society was by the terms of the resolutions passed by the General Conference of 1844, and under their authority, lawfully placed in connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church South. They claim, therefore, that they as members of the Maysville society or Church, with their preacher, authorized by the Kentucky Annual Conference, with which the Maysville society had long been connected, are entitled to the uses provided in the deed, and that the minority having separated themselves from that society, and formed an independent Church or congregation in opposition to the authority of the Kentucky Annual Conference, and without the sanction and in violation of the resolutions of the General Conference of the entire Church, their claim to the house was contrary to the provisions of the deed, and to the rules and discipline therein referred to: and that their preacher sent from the Ohio Annual Conference, had no right under the deed and the rules and discipline, to the use of the pulpit in the Church at Maysville, which, according to the pre-existing organization, belonged to the Kentucky Conference, and should receive its preacher from that source, and not from the Ohio Conference, unless under the resolutions of the General Conference, the Maysville society had, by the vote of a majority, been detached from the Kentucky Conference.

The defence of the remaining trustees and others to the claims of complainant, denying their exclusive right as claimed, or any right to the use of the Church building, and claiming the exclusive right for their organization under a recommendation and act of the General Conference of the M. E. Church in the U. States in 1844, and the act of the Kentucky Conference in 1845, and the Maysville Church, in obedience to said recommendation and insisting that their occupation of the Church was inconsistent with the deed.

The complainant also claims the majority to be with his party; but he and his associates rely mainly on the ground already stated, and which is elaborately urged in an able argumentative replication, in which they insist on their continued membership in the same Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, into which they first entered, and to whose members the use of the property was secured by the deed, and charge that the other party having united itself with a different Church, its members do not come within the description of the beneficiaries in the deed, as members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. They also deny that the General Conference of 1844, had power to divide the Methodist Episcopal Church, or to dispose of the property secured to its members in the use of their preaching houses, or to dispose of the members themselves by attaching them, against their will, to the anticipated southern organization, or to sanction a division of the Church in its membership, property, or authority. And they farther maintain that if the resolutions of that body passed for that purpose, and relied on by the defendants, be valid and binding on the Church, and terms and conditions therein prescribed, have not been complied with so as to legalize the action and independent organization of the Southern Conference, or to afford protection or secure rights to that organization.

Complainants deny in their replication that the majority of the Church at Maysville is with the defendants, and insist that the defendants have separated from the M. Episcopal Church, and are no longer the beneficiaries entitled under the deed--deny the authority of the General Conference to divide the M. Episcopal Church or dispose of the property secured to the Church in houses of worship, or to dispose of the members against their will to a Southern organization; and that the recommendation of the Conference, if legal, has not been complied with.

Notwithstanding the exclusive right thus asserted and insisted on by each party, the Circuit Court being of opinion that as this was a case of schism or division, not caused by immorality, the first proviso in the act of 1814, " for the benefit of religious societies," (2 Stat. Law, 1347,) prescribed the rule of apportionment according to number, and finding the parties to be nearly equal in numbers, decreed the alternate use of the house for one week at a time, to each party in succession. From this decree each party has appealed, each claiming, in this as in the Circuit Court, that under the true construction and application of the deed, the exclusive use is secured to itself, and that the statute prescribed no rule for the case.

The decree of the Circuit Court dividing the use of the Church under the statute of 1814, (Stat. Law, 1347.)

I. We shall first consider the question as to the application and effect of the proviso. Conceding that the body of the statute applies not only to such religious congregations or societies as are completely independent, but also to such as may be under relations of dependence and connection as parts of a larger system, and that whenever a lot has been conveyed to trustees for the benefit of a congregation or society of either sort, for the purposes mentioned, the succeeding trustees, regularly chosen and having their names recorded in the County Court, are by the statute, invested with the legal title and with the powers expressly enumerated, subject to the proviso; still the proviso declares nothing more than that the act shall not be construed to authorize the said trustees, in case of schism or division, not caused by immorality, to prevent either of the parties from using the house erected on the lot, for devotion, a part of the time proportioned to the numbers of each; and we are satisfied that it was not intended to control the operation of the deed, or to affect permanently, the rights of the beneficiaries, or to restrict the powers of a Court of Equity in ascertaining and enforcing those rights according to the true intent of the deed by which they were conferred. The...