Opinion ID: 2505697
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 23

Heading: Constitutional Implications of Majority Opinion

Text: In Everson, 330 U.S. at 8-16, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711, Justice Hugo Black beautifully summarized the troubling history surrounding the enactment of the Establishment Clause and the First Amendment in the United States. For brevity's sake, I only include the following concluding paragraph from Justice Black's cogent discussion in Everson: The establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between Church and State. Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. [145] at page 164, 25 L.Ed. 244 [(1878)]. Id. at 15-16, 67 S.Ct. 504 (footnotes omitted). I would hold that by virtue of the numerous special privileges bestowed on the National Church by today's majority opinion, this Court has run afoul of the Establishment Clause and furthered the establishment of the National Church. It seems that the majority would give highly preferential legal treatment to hierarchical churches as compared to congregational churches or any other nonhierarchical church. This preference is founded on the National Church's grab for property on account of its church theology, under which church property is sacred according to the church historian hired by the National Church. In addition, the fact that the National Church called the Dennis Canon a canon proves that the Dennis Canon is, in effect, the outreach of the National Church's church theology. Therefore, insofar as the majority is enforcing the Dennis Canon, this Court is expressly endorsing church dogma, which is how various dictionaries define the term canon, and the endorsement of church dogma by this Court directly violates Jones as well. See Jones, 443 U.S. at 604, 99 S.Ct. 3020 (In undertaking such an examination, a civil court must take special care to scrutinize the document in purely secular terms, and not to rely on religious precepts in determining whether the document indicates that the parties have intended to create a trust.). Additionally, all other legal entities, except for hierarchical churches, would be prohibited by Georgia law from establishing trusts on other people's properties that the settlor of the trust had no power to convey. This violates the Establishment Clause by privileging hierarchical churches over all other legal entities. Granting a privilege for hierarchical churches to establish a trust on the property of others, even their own member churches, represents a dangerous preference in favor of hierarchical churches in violation of the Establishment Clause. U.S. Const. Amend. 1; Ga. Const., Art. I, Sec. II, Para. VII. It favors hierarchical churches over non-hierarchical churches, and it favors churches over non-churches. Indeed, the National Church improved its financial balance sheet by several million dollars on this one gift of special privilege by today's decision. Under the majority's reasoning, it appears that all settlors of trusts, except for hierarchical churches, would be required to comply with the applicable state statutes, requiring deeds, signed by the grantor, the creation of a trust interest in writing, etc. This represents a troubling effort to favor one type of religion over other religions or nonadherents. As the United States Supreme Court previously observed, `[a] proper respect for both the Free Exercise and the Establishment Clauses compels the State to pursue a course of neutrality toward religion, favoring neither one religion over others nor religious adherents collectively over nonadherents.' Bd. of Ed. of Kiryas Joel Village School Dist. v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687, 696, 114 S.Ct. 2481, 129 L.Ed.2d 546 (1994) (citations and punctuation omitted); see also Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 244-246(III)(A), 102 S.Ct. 1673, 72 L.Ed.2d 33 (1982).
The Separation of Powers Clause in the Georgia Constitution provides that [t]he legislative, judicial, and executive powers shall forever remain separate and distinct; and no person discharging the duties of one shall at the same time exercise the functions of either of the others except as herein provided. Ga. Const., Art. I, Sec. II, Para. III. That is, the Georgia Constitution vests all legislative power in the General Assembly and all judicial power in the courts. See Thompson v. Talmadge, 201 Ga. 867, 872, 41 S.E.2d 883 (1947). Because only the General Assembly can enact, amend, modify, or repeal its own valid statutes, this Court has no power whatsoever to modify, amend, or repeal a valid constitutional statute enacted by the General Assembly. Kemp v. Mitchell County Democratic Executive Committee, 216 Ga. 276, 283, 116 S.E.2d 321 (1960). Nevertheless, it appears that this Court has usurped the legislative power of declaring what the law shall be by abrogating or misapplying a variety of state statutes of longstanding significance to the facts of this case. See Thompson, 201 Ga. at 874, 41 S.E.2d 883 (`Legislative power is that which declares what the law shall be; judicial is that which declares what law is, and applies it to past transactions and existing cases; the one makes the law, the other expounds and judicially administers it; the one prescribes a rule of civil conduct, the other interprets and enforces it in a case in litigation.'). The refusal of the majority to apply a variety of state statutes as enacted by the Legislature effectively annuls those state statutes. Additionally, the judicially-created new type of implied trust that the majority relies on today, amounts to this Court legislating from the bench by ignoring the existing Georgia implied trust statutes and creating a new statutory equivalent to resolve this case that is entirely inconsistent with the existing state statutes regarding implied trusts. In so doing, I would conclude that today's majority opinion violates the Separation of Powers Clause by permitting the majority to fulfill the role of the ultimate legislative body, by creating a new type of implied trust out of whole cloth, which is the functional equivalent of enacting a new state statute, and by cherry-picking which among the many applicable state statutes it will discuss, misapply, ignore, or eviscerate.
One obvious conclusion that a reader will likely draw after reading this dissenting opinion and the majority opinion is that summary judgment is simply inappropriate at this juncture. The Georgia Constitution enshrines the right to a jury trial in cases such as this where a jury trial has been demanded. Ga. Const., Art. I, Sec. I, Para. XI(a) (The right to trial by jury shall remain inviolate, except that the court shall render judgment without the verdict of a jury in all civil cases where no issuable defense is filed and where a jury is not demanded in writing by either party. . . .). Today's majority opinion, like the trial court and the Court of Appeals, resolves this case on the basis of summary judgment without ever mentioning, let alone discussing, the disputed facts in need of jury resolution. The only rationale that I can fathom for this omission by the majority is that any detailed discussion about the sacrosanct right to a trial by jury would show, without question, that CCS is entitled to a jury trial in this case. Generally speaking, summary judgment is proper under Georgia law, OCGA § 9-11-56(c), only . . . if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law; but nothing in this Code section shall be construed as denying to any party the right to trial by jury where there are substantial issues of fact to be determined. . . . (Emphasis added.) Because there are genuine issues as to one or more material facts here, listed below, the majority opinion errs in affirming the grant of summary judgment in favor of the National Church and the majority opinion compounds its error by its denial of the local church's constitutional right to a jury trial. (1) Summary judgment is inappropriate, where, as here, many questions of material fact remain about the intentions of CCS and the National Church regarding a trust. See Holcim (US) Inc. v. AMDG, Inc., 265 Ga. App. 818, 821, 596 S.E.2d 197 (2004) (Because questions of fact remain as to the parties' intent, the trial court erred in granting AMDG's motion for summary judgment.); see also Warner Robins Supply Co. v. Malone, 143 Ga.App. 332, 335, 238 S.E.2d 709 (1977) (In this case there was a substantial and material issue of fact as to the meaning and intent of the parties in the preparation and execution of the receipt or release. Accordingly, the trial judge erred in granting appellees' summary judgment.). Here, there are questions about the intentions of the parties in signing and drafting certain administrative forms. Did the National Church intend to deceive by its misuse of the word `canon' when it secretly intended for canon to mean trust? Did CCS understand the National Church's ploy, or was it deceived? Did the National Church's silence since its creation about its claimed trust interest reveal that it did not intend to form a trust on CCS's property? Alternatively, did the National Church intend by its lengthy silence to lay low so as to spring its claimed trust on CCS when it was too late? Did the enactment of the Dennis Canon reveal that the National Church did not claim any trust interest on CCS's property prior to its enactment in 1979? What did CCS intend when it signed certain administrative forms prepared by the National Church after the enactment of the Dennis Canon? These factual questions surrounding the intention of the parties would, standing alone, mandate a jury trial in this case. (2) Summary judgment also is inappropriate based on the affidavit of the National Church's expert witness, a church historian, who did not claim to be an expert in law so as to know whether the facts gathered through multiple layers of hearsay and the opinions of unidentified sources should have been found to be a trust of any sort according to the laws of Georgia or any other state. The expert witness's extrapolations from opinions and hearsay appear to set forth the facts found to be essential for a grant of summary judgment by the majority. Yet, an affidavit proffering one expert's opinion, standing alone, cannot be legally sufficient to make any finding of fact without giving a jury the opportunity to weigh all of the evidence and evaluate the expert's credibility. See Ginn v. Morgan, 225 Ga. 192, 193-194, 167 S.E.2d 393 (1969) ([W]e reach the solid conclusion that a summary judgment can never issue based solely upon opinion evidence.). Therefore, the affidavit submitted by the National Church's expert witness would necessarily be a defective factual basis for finding any such trust. (3) Any issues involving the alleged ratification of the Dennis Canon or prior church canons by CCS are jury issues and not matters for summary adjudication. See Brock, 287 Ga. at 854, 700 S.E.2d 583. (Whether ratification occurs is usually a fact question for the jury.). Similarly, there is no reason to assume that ratification was intended by such menial actions as CCS buying prayer books from the National Church. There does not appear to be any possible connection between a local church buying prayer books and a manifestation of one's intention to transfer its valuable title to a trust for the benefit of another entity. In my view, these and similarly strained claims of actions by CCS tending to support ratification made by the National Church are so incredible that it creates a jury issue about the National Church's sincerity in any of its claims. (4) It is worth emphasizing that the balance of equities in this case strongly favors CCS since there is no claim by the National Church that CCS has done anything secretive, deceitfully, in bad faith, or failed to disclose anything to its confidential relation, the National Church. I would therefore permit a jury to resolve these and other genuine issues of material fact after first having an opportunity to review all of the admissible evidence, hear testimony, and make credibility determinations. In addition, I would hold that the majority errs by denying CCS its constitutional right to a jury trial.