St. Patrick'S v. St. Patrick's Church of W. Troy

• Decision Date: 08 May 2014
• Citation: 985 N.Y.S.2d 743,117 A.D.3d 1213,2014 N.Y. Slip Op. 03314
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division
• Parties: CITIZENS FOR ST. PATRICK'S et al., Appellants, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SAINT PATRICK'S CHURCH OF WEST TROY, also known as St. Patrick'S Church of the Village of West Troy, also known as St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, West Troy, New York, et al., Respondents.

117 A.D.3d 1213
985 N.Y.S.2d 743
2014 N.Y. Slip Op. 03314

CITIZENS FOR ST. PATRICK'S et al., Appellants, et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
SAINT PATRICK'S CHURCH OF WEST TROY, also known as St. Patrick'S Church of the Village of West Troy, also known as St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, West Troy, New York, et al., Respondents.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, New York.

May 8, 2014.

[985 N.Y.S.2d 744]

Rosemary Nichols, Watervliet, for appellants.

Tobin and Dempf, Albany (Michael L. Costello of counsel), for Saint Patrick's Church of West Troy, respondent.

Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna, LLP, Albany (Robert L. Sweeney of counsel), for PCP Watervliet, LLC, respondent.

Before: PETERS, P.J., LAHTINEN, McCARTHY and GARRY, JJ.

McCARTHY, J.

Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court (O'Connor, J.), entered December 31, 2012 in Albany County, which, among other things, granted a motion by defendant St. Patrick's Church of West Troy to dismiss the complaint.

Defendant Saint Patrick's Church of West Troy (hereinafter St. Patrick's) is a Roman Catholic church that was incorporated in 1875. In 2005, by decree of the bishop, St. Patrick's was consolidated with several other parishes. In 2012, St. Patrick's agreed to sell its real property, including a historic church building, to defendant PCP Watervliet, LLC, which intended to demolish the buildings and lease the property to a supermarket. Pursuant to Religious Corporations Law § 12 and N–PCL 511, St. Patrick's requested judicial authorization for the sale of the property. Supreme Court granted the petition by order dated December 5, 2012 (hereinafter the authorization order).

[985 N.Y.S.2d 745]

On December 13, 2012, plaintiffs, a citizen advocacy group composed of former parishioners of St. Patrick's and seven of those individual parishioners, filed a notice of pendency against the property and, a few days later, served St. Patrick's with a motion to intervene in the Religious Corporations Law proceeding. St. Patrick's moved to, among other things, cancel the notice of pendency. On December 28, 2012, plaintiffs withdrew the motion to intervene and notice of pendency ¹ and filed a second notice of pendency along with a summons and complaint seeking a declaratory judgment stating that the Religious Corporations Law petition was defective, rescinding the authorization order and granting a hearing on whether the sale of the property should be permitted. On December 31, 2012, Supreme Court granted the motion by St. Patrick's to cancel the notice of pendency and dismissed the summons and complaint, finding that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the transfer of the property. Plaintiffs appeal.²

Plaintiffs' action was an impermissible collateral attack on the authorization order. The proper procedure would have been to move to vacate that order pursuant to CPLR 5015, which permits “any interested person” to move for such...