St. James Newport Beach Prevails on two Motions

ST. JAMES CHURCH PREVAILS ON TWO MOTIONS BROUGHT BY THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES AND THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH SEEKING TO END THE CASE IN THEIR FAVOR
July 15th, 2009

On July 13 St. James Church won a significant legal battle in its property rights case in Orange County Superior Court when Judge Thierry P. Colaw denied two motions brought by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and The Episcopal Church which sought to end the case in their favor.

The Diocese brought a demurrer — a formal objection to an opponent’s pleadings — to the St. James cross-complaint, arguing that the California Supreme Court’s February 2009 decision definitively awarded St. James’s property to the Diocese. The Diocese also argued that a Diocesan-issued 1991 letter waiving the Diocese’s trust interest over the property on 32nd Street had already been addressed in favor of the Diocese by the California Supreme Court. Attorneys for The Episcopal Church brought a similar motion, arguing that they prevailed on their complaint on similar grounds.

The Episcopal parties made these arguments even though the case went up on appeal before the St. James defendants ever answered the Episcopal complaints or brought affirmative defenses.

Judge Colaw sided with arguments made by St. James’s attorneys on all counts, and rejected the Episcopal parties’ attempt to deny the St. James defendants of due process and to avoid the promises made by the Diocese to St. James in the 1991 letter. Both motions were argued before the Court on July 2.

St. James Church filed a petition for writ of certiorari on June 24, 2009, with the Supreme Court of the United States. St. James is asking the Court to overturn the California Supreme Court’s decision, which purports to confer a special power on certain religious denominations to take property they do not own simply by passing an internal “rule.” The petition asks the Supreme Court to decide whether, under the U.S. Constitution, certain religious denominations can disregard the normal rules of property ownership that apply to everyone else. the rest

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