No break in pace of Episcopal Church lawsuits

The Church of England Newspaper
August 9, 2010
George Conger

The summer months have seen no break in the Episcopal Church’s legal wars, with new lawsuits, appeals and victories for both sides in the litigation over parish and diocesan property.

On July 6, the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin filed suit against the rector, vestry and parish of St Paul’s Anglican Church in Visalia, California. A congregation of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin, St. Paul’s along with a majority of the diocese withdrew from the Episcopal Church in 2007 and affiliated with the Province of the Southern Cone.

The St Paul’s litigation joins a growing list of parish lawsuits funded by the national Episcopal Church and initiated by loyalist faction in San Joaquin. Suits against lay leaders and parish corporations are pending against St Francis Anglican Church in Turlock; St Michael’s Anglican Church in Ridgecrest; St John’s Anglican Church in Porterville, James Anglican Church in Sonora; Holy Redeemer Anglican Church in Delano; and St Columba’s Anglican Church in Fresno.

Canon lawyer Alan Halley noted the diocese appeared to have adopted a legal strategy of financial attrition. By adding the parish vestry and clergy as defendants in the lawsuits, the diocese was engaged in a “particularly nefarious attempt to force the defendants to waste money on the litigation.”

In California, each named defendant must pay an “appearance fee” of $355 to the court when a response is filed to a complaint, he noted. In the case of St Francis in Turlock, for the rector and ten members of the vestry to respond fully “will cost the parish of St. Francis a cool $3,905 in court filing fees, to say nothing of the legal fees that will be incurred.” the rest