Schismatic and Purported Casa Linda Presbyterian Church in America v. Grace Union Presbytery, Inc.

• Decision Date: 18 April 1986
• Docket Number: No. 05-85-00599-CV,05-85-00599-CV
• Citation: 710 S.W.2d 700
• Parties: The SCHISMATIC AND PURPORTED CASA LINDA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, et al., Appellants, v. GRACE UNION PRESBYTERY, INC., et al., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 700

710 S.W.2d 700

The SCHISMATIC AND PURPORTED CASA LINDA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, et al., Appellants, v. GRACE UNION PRESBYTERY, INC., et al., Appellees.

No. 05-85-00599-CV.

Court of Appeals of Texas Dallas.

April 18, 1986.

Rehearing Denied June 4, 1986.

Jack Pew, Jr., Dallas, for appellants.

Lee Smith, Dallas, for appellees.

Before AKIN, DEVANY and STEWART, JJ.

STEWART, Justice.

This case concerns a dispute over the ownership of church property after some of the members of the Casa Linda Presbyterian Church of Dallas, Texas, sought to withdraw from the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), the hierarchical and parent church to which Casa Linda Presbyterian Church had always belonged. The withdrawing group appeals the trial court's judgment vesting title to the church's real and personal property in the church members who remain loyal to the parent church. In seven points of error, the withdrawing group contends that the trial court erred by (1) violating the first and fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution in failing to apply neutral principles of law to determine church ownership; (2) holding that the hierarchy of the PCUS was authorized to designate the minority of the membership of the Casa Linda Presbyterian Church of Dallas, Texas, as titleholder of all church property; and (3) and (4) finding that the hierarchy in fact designated the loyal group as such titleholder and finding null and void the meeting resulting in the withdrawing group's disarfiliation with the PCUS because neither finding is supported by legally or factually sufficient evidence; (5) basing the judgment on an implied trust theory, if it did, because such theory is without support in the law or evidence and was waived by appellees; (6) basing its judgment on the withdrawing group's violation of the "Pastoral Letter," if it did, because any such violation could not in effect divest title to the church property from the withdrawing group nor vest title in the loyal group; and (7) awarding the church property to "Casa Linda Presbyterian Church, Inc.," a nonexistent corporation. We do not agree that these points of error require reversal of the judgment. However, we modify the judgment to decree title in the Casa Linda Presbyterian Church of Dallas, Texas. As modified, we affirm.

The Presbyterian Church in the United States is governed according to an ascending order of ecclesiastical judicatories or "courts": Church Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, and the General Assembly. The government of the local church is committed to its Session, the actions of which are subject to review and control by the higher church courts. PCUS is governed by a Constitution which consists of the Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and the Book of Church Order. The Constitution delegates to the various church judicatories their respective areas of authority.

The Presbytery is given power to review the records of the Session, redress whatever the Session may have done contrary to order, and see that the Session observes the Constitution of the church. It also has power to see that the injunctions of the church judicatories are obeyed. The Presbytery alone has power to organize new churches, receive and dismiss churches, and dissolve churches, as well as to ordain, receive, dismiss, install, remove, and judge ministers. Any individual who questions an action taken by any church judicatory or who disagrees with the decision rendered by it may appeal the action or decision to the immediately superior ecclesiastical tribunal.

On February 13, 1973, in anticipation that some of its local congregations might attempt to withdraw from the PCUS, the Presbytery of the Covenant (now known as the Grace Union Presbytery) established an Administrative Commission pursuant to provisions of the Book of Church Order to deal with any attempts by local congregations to withdraw from the Presbytery. On April 13, 1973, the Commission adopted an ecclesiastical injunction styled "A Pastoral Letter to the Ministers and Sessions of the Presbytery of the Covenant." The Pastoral Letter required that ninety days notice be given to the Presbytery by any Session prior to calling a congregational meeting for the purpose of considering a proposal to withdraw from the Presbytery. It also required that an additional ten days written notice be given to every communicant on the roll of any such church stating that the purpose of the meeting is "to consider and to act upon a proposal that the congregation vote to 'withdraw' from the Presbytery of the Covenant of the Presbyterian Church in the United States."

Casa Linda Presbyterian Church was organized as an unincorporated religious association in 1947. The association incorporated as a non-profit Texas corporation in 1949 under the name "The Covenant Presbyterian Church of Dallas, Texas"; in 1952 the corporate name was changed to "The Casa Linda Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas." The church has always subjected itself to the government of the Presbytery of PCUS, as have its ministers through ordination vows. On February 15, 1981, a congregational meeting was held with 429 of 1100 members present. Two hundred and eighty-five of those present, including two of the church's ministers, voted to withdraw from the PCUS. This action was taken without the ninety-day notice to the Presbytery or the ten-day notice to the members on the church roll as required by the Pastoral Letter. This majority then united with Presbyterian Church in America and has continued to retain possession of the local church property.

On February 20, 1981, the Presbytery appointed an Administrative Commission to act for it to inquire into and resolve the difficulties in the Casa Linda Congregation. Thereafter, the Commission declared the purported withdrawal of the Congregation to be unconstitutional and therefore null and void. The Commission later suspended from their offices both withdrawing ministers and all withdrawing elder members of the Session, except one, and assumed original jurisdiction over the congregation in place of the Session. In addition, the Commission recognized the members of the congregation who remained loyal to PCUS "as the Casa Linda Presbyterian Church of Dallas, Texas, a constituent congregation of Grace Union Presbytery...." None of appellants availed themselves of the right to appeal the actions of the Commission.

When the withdrawing group refused to turn over all of the local church property to the Presbytery and the loyal group, they filed suit, requesting the court to declare the actions of the withdrawing faction null and void and to vest the church's real and personal property in the loyal group. Upon a judgment for Presbytery and the loyal group, the withdrawing faction appeals.

Although appellants assert seven points of error, the main thrust of their argument is that this controversy should be decided by application of the neutral principles of law method for resolving church property disputes, articulated in the United States Supreme Court's decision in Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 61 L.Ed.2d 775 (1979); that neutral principles of law require the award of the local church property to appellants; and that the authority relied upon by the trial court is inconsistent with Jones v. Wolf and is not a correct application of neutral principles of law.

Appellees respond that the decision in Jones v. Wolf does not require state courts to use the neutral principles of law approach to decide church property disputes; that Jones also reaffirmed the deference rule as a constitutional approach to resolving hierarchical church property disputes; that the trial court relied on Texas authority which applied the deference rule; and, therefore, that neither the authority relied upon by the trial court nor its judgment is inconsistent with the Jones v. Wolf decision.

First, we consider appellants' seventh point of error in which they contend that the trial court violated the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution in failing to apply neutral principles of law to determine the ownership of real and personal property of the Casa Linda Presbyterian Church. We do not agree. The United States Supreme Court has approved two methods for deciding title to church property. The first, known as the "deference rule," was established in Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 20 L.Ed. 666 (1871). In that case, the Court held that in a hierarchical religious body ¹ such as the PCUS, the civil courts are prohibited from interfering with the decisions of ecclesiastical tribunals; it was considered that persons who unite themselves to a hierarchical church organization do so with an "implied consent" that intrachurch disputes, including disputes over church property, will be decided by the church courts. Later, in the case of Gonzalez v. Archbishop, 280 U.S. 1, 16, 50 S.Ct. 5, 7, 74 L.Ed. 131 (1929), the Court recognized that civil courts have the right to determine whether a church decision resulted from fraud, collusion, or arbitrariness. Both Watson and Gonzalez were federal common law decisions. However, after the establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the first amendment were incorporated into the fourteenth amendment and thereby made applicable to the states, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the deference rule and implied that it had constitutional standing. Kreshik v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral, 363 U.S. 190, 80 S.Ct. 1037, 4 L.Ed.2d 1140 (1960); Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral, 344 U.S. 94, 73 S.Ct. 143, 97 L.Ed. 120 (1952).

The second approach, known as "neutral principles of law," was first enunciated by the Supreme Court in Presbyterian Church in the United States v. Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 89 S.Ct. 601, 21 L.Ed.2d 658 (1969). In that case, involving a property dispute between two local churches on...