A.S. Haley: Federal Judge Returns South Carolina Case to State Court

Monday, June 10, 2013

In a thoroughly researched and well-reasoned opinion released today, Senior District Judge C. Weston Houck of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division, ordered that the trademark infringement and declaratory relief action -- originally brought in State court by Bishop Mark Lawrence's Diocese and its parishes, but "removed" to federal court by the Episcopal Church in South Carolina -- be returned to State court for further adjudication. Judge Houck's order finds that there is no basis upon which any federal court could assert original jurisdiction over the claims asserted in the Lawrence complaint.

The order is a veritable model of how to proceed in analyzing and dissecting opposing arguments, and then applying the law to the facts so discerned. Judge Houck begins by describing the parties to the dispute: the plaintiff Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, a non-profit religious corporation organized under South Carolina law in 1973; the plaintiff Trustees, also a non-profit corporation organized under South Carolina law in 1902 for the purpose of holding title to real property of the Diocese; and the thirty-five plaintiff parishes, each of which is a separate religious corporation under South Carolina law. the rest