Opinion ID: 1959644
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Judgments of Circuit Court and Court of Special Appeals

Text: After considering the evidence, such as it was, and the parties' arguments and counter-arguments, the Circuit Court granted the Temple equitable relief and ordered a permanent injunction against Petitioner on 6 January 1998. [8] Although Petitioner had insisted repeatedly that he had been named the trustee of the Temple, the court found no evidence of any document providing for an express trust: First of all, the Court would like to define express trust, because there seems to be a misunderstanding as to exactly what an express trust is. Since we are talking initially of a trustee, which [Respondent] says that it is a term that is foreign to the Moorish Science Temple of America, a trustee would have to be duly appointed or designated, and that the term includes a person with whom or in whose name a contract is made for the benefit of another. ... but the bottom line is there is absolutely no indication that the founder of this movement ever intended a trust of anything. The judge determined that not only was the word trustee not used in any of the Temple's corporate documents received in evidence, but that whoever drew [the Temple's articles of incorporation] up expressly eliminated [crossed-out] the word `trustee' [in the form document] and replaced it [in handwriting] with [the word] `sheik.' Having found no evidence of an express trust to support Petitioner's claims to a secular leadership position or the property of the Temple, the court ordered the permanent injunction restraining Petitioner from referring to himself as an officer, director, agent, or trustee of the Temple. [9] Petitioner filed a direct appeal with the Court of Special Appeals on 22 December 1998. He ultimately asserted three grounds for reversal: (1) the Circuit Court lacked the authority to resolve the religious dispute presented by the case, in light of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution; (2) the requisite likelihood of irreparable damage to Respondent to justify an injunction was not demonstrated; and (3) the court, in ordering the injunction, failed to apply properly the term trustee, at least in the sense that term was understood by Petitioner. On 3 March 2000, the intermediate appellate court affirmed the Circuit Court's judgment, holding that the Circuit Court properly resolved the dispute by neutral, secular principles, that trustee was not a term used by the Temple, and that the Temple had suffered and would continue to suffer irreparable harm from Petitioner's misrepresentations. El Bey v. Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc., 130 Md. App. 543, 561, 747 A.2d 241, 251 (2000). We granted certiorari on 23 June 2000. Bey v. Moorish Temple, 359 Md. 333, 753 A.2d 1031 (2000). Because we shall decide this case based on a point embedded in Petitioner's third question, we shall not answer his other queries.