Dissident parish takes property fight to U.S. Supreme Court

A breakaway congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has taken the fight to keep its property to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to a statement released June 24 by St. James Anglican Church.

An attorney for the Newport Beach congregation said he will ask the nation's top court to overturn a January California Supreme Court decision that the property was held in trust for the mission and ministry of the Los Angeles diocese and the wider Episcopal Church.

"We will be arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court that the California Supreme Court's interpretation of state law has violated the First Amendment of the United States Constitution," said Dr. John Eastman, who is dean of the Chapman University Law School and a former clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

"The First Amendment says Congress shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Even though it says Congress, that Amendment has been interpreted as applicable to the states as well," Eastman said in the prepared release.

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. A response from the court regarding the St. James petition can be expected as early as October 2009. A decision could be reached as early as mid-2010.

John Shiner, chancellor for the Los Angeles diocese, told the Episcopal News Service, "We believe the opinions of the California Supreme Court and Court of Appeal resolved completely the issue involving property ownership, taking into account constitutional and other relevant arguments including an earlier decision on the subject by the U.S. Supreme Court."

A majority of St. James' members voted to disaffiliate from the Episcopal Church and to realign with the Anglican Province of Uganda in August 2004, citing theological disagreements and the consecration of an openly gay Episcopal Church bishop. They sought to retain the Newport Beach property.

Leaders replaced the word "Episcopal" in their name and documents with "Anglican" although the Episcopal Church is a member church in the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes 80 million people in 44 regional and national member churches in 160 countries.

A year after the disaffiliation, Orange County Superior Judge David C. Velasquez ruled the congregation owned the property. The California Court of Appeal reversed the lower court ruling in July 2007, deferring to church hierarchy regarding ownership of local church property. The state supreme court upheld the appellate court in January 2009.

Eastman said St. James will argue that the state supreme court's ruling also denies "the local church community their ability to organize and hold title to their own building and conduct their religious services in a manner they see fit," thereby violating their right to the free exercise of religion.

"Under longstanding law, no one can unilaterally impose a trust over someone else's property without their permission," Eastman said. "Yet, in the decision titled Episcopal Church Cases, the California Supreme Court ruled that certain denominations – those that claim to be a "superior religious body or general church" – can unilaterally impose a trust on the property of spiritually affiliated but separately incorporated local churches, resulting in the local church forfeiting its property if it ever chooses to leave the denomination."

Eastman said the constitutional issues involved affect all places of worship and spiritual centers. "Every local church, temple, synagogue, parish, spiritual center, congregation or religious group which owns its own property through a religious corporation, and has some affiliation with a larger religious group, is at risk of losing its own property under the California Supreme Court's ruling," he said.