Anglican Curmudgeon: Arguments in the San Joaquin Case

Sunday, May 3, 2009
by A. S. Haley

Tomorrow the Fresno County Superior Court will post its tentative ruling on the Motion for Summary Adjudication filed by the Episcopal Church (USA), the Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb, and what they call the "Diocese of San Joaquin" and "The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin, a corporation sole" against the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield (whom the complaint names as "Mr. Schofield"), the Episcopal Foundation of San Joaquin, Inc., the Diocesan Investment Trust of the Diocese of San Joaquin, and the Anglican Diocese Holding Corporation. The motion is ambiguous, because it asks the court to adjudicate "Count I" of the Second Amended Complaint (which is practically identical to the First Amended Complaint posted here, except for some explanatory headings), and the Complaint does not contain any section entitled "Count I". The motion also appears to be procedurally defective on a number of grounds under the California Rules of Court. Thus the court could deny the motion on any of these procedural grounds without reaching the merits of the matter; this will be known only when the court posts its tentative ruling late Monday afternoon (at this site---to avoid congestion, please wait until after 3:45 p.m. PDT to try to view the ruling).

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