A.S. Haley: SCOTUS Denies Review to ECUSA in Ft. Worth/ San Angelo Cases

Monday, November 3, 2014

Today the Supreme Court of the United States issued its order denying (without opinion) review (“certiorari”) of the decisions rendered last September by the Supreme Court of Texas in the Fort Worth and San Angelo cases.

The order was expected, because neither decision by the Texas Supreme Court was final. The U. S. Supreme Court almost never agrees to review lower court decisions until they are final. In these two cases, the Fort Worth matter was sent back to Judge Chupp’s court for a trial, and the Church of the Good Shepherd case was likewise sent back to the trial court in San Angelo for further proceedings.
The action by SCOTUS now frees both of those cases to move ahead.

In Fort Worth, Bishop Iker’s attorneys have filed a motion for summary judgment which is scheduled for a hearing in December. Given the decision by the Texas Supreme Court, the only question remaining for the trial court to decide is whether or not ECUSA managed to create a valid trust in the Diocese’s property which the Diocese did not revoke when it decided to withdraw in 2008. In Texas all trusts are deemed to be fully revocable at any time, unless the language creating the trust states otherwise.

ECUSA earlier claimed that its Dennis Canon imposed a trust upon each parish property whose title was held by Bishop Iker’s corporate Diocese of Fort Worth, as well as on the Diocese’s own property. But the Texas Supreme Court ruled that any Dennis Canon trust was not expressly irrevocable, and so the withdrawal of the Diocese and its associated parishes from the Episcopal Church (USA) effectively revoked any such trust... the rest