Opinion ID: 2505697
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: The Majority's Flawed Application of Neutral Principles and Jones v. Wolf

Text: The majority opinion describes neutral principles of law as including, deeds and other instruments of title, state statutes, and documents regarding local and general church government.  Maj. Op. at 241 (emphasis added). The majority's description is antagonistic to the United States Supreme Court's description of neutral principles in Jones, which specifically listed only the following four neutral principles of law: the language of the deeds, the terms of the local church charters, the state statutes governing the holding of church property, and the provisions in the constitution of the general church concerning the ownership and control of church property. Jones, 443 U.S. at 603, 99 S.Ct. 3020. Unlike the United States Supreme Court in Jones, today's majority opinion adds all documents regarding local and general church government to its list of neutral principles. See Maj. Op. at 243. In so doing, the majority makes a critical and unwarranted departure from the specifically enumerated neutral principles described in Jones by expanding its list of neutral principles to include mere bylaws, church history, and prior case law. Further, the Dennis Canon, by its terms, is not the same as a legally recognized trust under Georgia law for reasons set out infra. Even if the Dennis Canon could be characterized as a legally recognizable trust under Georgia law, CCS nevertheless would maintain perfect title under Georgia's adverse possession statute, OCGA § 44-5-164. In addition to describing neutral principles antagonistically to the United States Supreme Court in Jones, the majority opinion also applies its so-called neutral principles in a manner that diverges widely from the United States Supreme Court's intended application. After summarily discounting the value of examining deeds and other instruments of title as neutral principles here, the majority proceeds to misapply three state statutes, each one a neutral principle under Jones, namelyOCGA §§ 14-5-46, 14-5-47, and 53-12-20. The majority opinion proceeds to devote the bulk of its analysis not to the terms of deeds, state statutes, local church charters, or the constitutional provisions of the general church, as Jones commanded, but rather to the amorphously termed church government documents. See Maj. Op. at 243-50. That is, after deriding the ongoing relevance of both deeds and state statutes, two of the four neutral principles expressly listed by the United States Supreme Court in Jones, 443 U.S. at 603, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 61 L.Ed.2d 775 and the Supreme Court of Georgia in Jones, 244 Ga. at 388(2), 260 S.E.2d 84, the majority asserts that it is most revealing (although unfortunately not most succinct) to review the local and general church documents as they were created, amended, and followed over the course of the quarter millennium that Christ Church interacted with a parent denomination before the dispute underlying this lawsuit arose. Maj. Op. at 246. The historical documents the majority then injects contain no deeds, no state statutes, and no local church charters, as Jones commands. I ask rhetorically whether this historical narration is a neutral principle under Jones, and if not, why examine it at all? The lengthy historical narration included in the majority's discussion of local and national church governing documents is also troubling because church history, while informative regarding the development of various church documents, is not a recognized neutral principle. Further, the history of CCS and the National Church is a highly complicated and inherently subjective topic that does not lend itself to the straightforward neutral principle approach envisioned by Jones. Unlike deeds, state statutes, corporate charters, and general church constitutions, the lengthy historical narration or affidavit prepared by the church historian in this case did not exist before the dispute arose. Rather, this affidavit was prepared only after the National Church hired the church historian to prepare an expert opinion for purposes of this litigation. Therefore, under Jones, this lengthy historical narration or affidavit cannot be used as a neutral principle or otherwise. Moreover, because this affidavit consists almost entirely of hearsay or opinions based on the hearsay of others, it is questionable whether the conclusions of this hired history would be admissible in any court of this state or elsewhere. The church historian's affidavit is also inextricably engaged with the theology of the National Episcopal Church since, as it clearly states, church property was considered sacred, and had special rules for its care and certain religious rules regarding its becoming and remaining sacred, such as, consecration. The majority opinion has made no effort to read this history and cull out of all consideration the subject property as it relates to the National Church's theology. As a result, the majority's reliance on historical narration within its discussion of local and national church documents is fraught with the danger of overstepping the clear boundaries of the First Amendment, which requires that this Court engage in absolutely no consideration of doctrinal matters, whether the ritual and liturgy of worship or the tenants of faith. Jones, 443 U.S. at 602, 99 S.Ct. 3020 (punctuation omitted). Of significant importance is that this church history does not set out the opinion of any particular historical person who claimed that there was an understanding of any trust. Nor does any identified person say what they mean by an understanding of a trust, nor who understood it to be a trust; nor the training of such person to know whether a trust existed under the law; nor how such a trust came to be; nor what political venue recognized this understanding of a trust. This dearth of historical information goes to the heart of this case. The majority opinion holds that Georgia law of property and trust is inferior to the National Church's nebulous historical recollections and proffered opinions lacking factual support. If the National Church understood there was a trust here, then that is all this majority opinion requires for this Court to find a trust despite Georgia laws to the contrary. Why isn't CCS, who owned the property, entitled to present evidence about its historical understanding of any trust? Contrary to the majority, I contend that the Georgia laws governing trusts and property transfers, which are neutral principles under Jones, rather than the professed historical understandings of the National Church's hired expert witness, which are not neutral principles under Jones, are most relevant to resolving whether there is an actual legal trust in this case. In Georgia, one confidential relation must take care to communicate openly and to operate with the utmost good faith toward the other confidential relation. OCGA §§ 23-2-53; 23-2-58. It is not rightly a private matter between two churches in a power relationship that one exercised undue control over the other. The public has a vested interest in Georgia property and trust law remaining valid. Should we utilize the applicable Georgia statutes as opposed to relying on which party offered a more compelling story about unidentified others' historical understandings, we would require that the parties abide by the safeguards of Georgia law before finding any such trust. The history of the National Episcopal Church, if the hired history proffered by the National Church were complete, would show monolithic churches, including the Anglican Church, were once so powerful that all citizens feared them. Many early settlers to this land came here out of fear of the cruelty of these monolithic churches, made cruel because they had their tentacles in state power. This history shows abuses not only of local churches, but abuses of local church members. It tortured them. It exacted taxes to support its ministers and buildings that the tortured members did not want or need. Members were forced to go to church. On occasion members were killed for disobedience. I include the stirring historical synopsis written of Justice Hugo Black in Everson v. Bd. of Ed. of Ewing Township, 330 U.S. 1, 8-16, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947), for those interested in a more complete history of churches as it relates to the enactment of the First Amendment in the United States. [19] This history was conveniently omitted from the affidavit tendered by the National Church's expert witness. As Justice Black explains in Everson, this abuse of power by monolithic churches who obtained their power to abuse and punish was power given to the church by the state in cases like this, by good hearted judges who did not intend any harm, but whose fear of the National Church or deference to its power structure instead of the law, created a monster church from which many of early settlers of this country fled Europe. These settlers refused to pass the United States Constitution until there was assurance in our First Amendment that we would be free from churches' abuse and power that derived from the state transferring power to the churches. Yet, in this case, the majority opinion gives unbelievable preferential legal treatment to the National Church and uses as one reason to do so its survey of church history. Included within this same period in church history, but ignored by the majority's opinion, is that some of our earliest settlers fled from England trembling with fear of monolithic churches. Justice Black's stirring language in Everson belies the majority's reliance on church history to rule in favor of the National Church. A review of the majority's discussion about local and national church documents reveals that rather than restricting its focus to the remaining two neutral principles of law identified in Jones, 443 U.S. at 603, 99 S.Ct. 3020. (local church charters and the constitution of the general church), the majority instead engages in a sprawling historical narration that extends from 1733 and the founding of Christ Church to 2009 or six years after the dispute leading to this litigation erupted. The affidavit of the National Church's hired expert witness traces back even further in church history to the period in which settlers fled from Europe to America to escape the clutches of church terror. The majority rationalizes its irregular description and application of neutral principles by claiming that [o]ur ultimate goal is to determine the intentions of the parties at the local and national level regarding beneficial ownership of the property at issue as expressed before the dispute erupt[ed] in a legally cognizable form. Maj. Op. at 240-41 (citations and punctuation omitted). Yet, the United States Supreme Court never stated in Jones that the intentions of the parties is a neutral principle of law. Rather, the Jones Court assumed that such intentions would be evident from examination of the neutral principles. See Jones, 443 U.S. at 603, 99 S.Ct. 3020. Therefore, only the specifically recognized neutral principles can be used to explain the parties' intentions, rather than hearsay and unfounded historical rumor by those who have not been shown to know what a trust is as a matter of law. Church history was not even listed in Jones as being relevant to determining whether a trust exists because it is wholly irrelevant. History may help explain the law, but history does not create law. The Legislature creates the law, or the parties create a trust by the documents and in accordance with the law. Enacting laws is the function of the Legislature. Enacting law is not the function of this Court, and is certainly not the function of a church historian hired as an expert witness by the National Church. This is why Jones commands that we look to deeds, state statutes, local church charters, and general church constitutional provisions, rather than to each party's skewed version of church history to determine whether a trust exists. Of course, the intention of the parties may be reflected in the specific language of deeds, relevant state statutes, corporate charters, or the organizational constitutions of the denomination. Yet, it is the duty of this Court to carefully examine each of the neutral principles identified by the United States Supreme Court in Jones in purely secular terms in order to determine whether any of these documents indicates that the parties have intended to create a trust. Jones, 443 U.S. at 604, 99 S.Ct. 3020. Under Jones, the neutral principles either express the parties' intention to create a trust or not. By contrast, under the majority opinion, the parties' supposed intentions based on their historical understandings, regardless of what the neutral principles establish, creates a trust. This is not in accordance with Jones. Simply stated, it is the unambiguous language in the neutral principles that must reveal any intention of the parties to create a trust on church property, and not the complicated and subjective topic of church history. This use of certain specific foundational documents in order to determine title is in accord with the property law of every state that I have encountered. Today's majority opinion excuses the National Church from complying with the requirement of filing any title documents or of changing corporate charters or church constitutional provisions as Jones described by this Court's declaration that following the law would be too expensive and burdensome for the National Church. What justification exists for a failure to require the National Church to file written deeds before it obtained title or a failure to require deeds be signed and recorded? Why fail to uphold longstanding Georgia trust law and create a new type of implied trust antagonistic to the existing law, then apply this new type of implied trust retroactively so as to allow the National Church to prevail?