Opinion ID: 2512369
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: How California Courts Should Resolve Disputes over Church Property

Text: (3) Decisions from both this court and the United States Supreme Court have made clear that, when asked to do so, secular courts may, indeed must, resolve internal church disputes over ownership of church property. As the high court put it in the seminal 19th-century case involving a church property dispute, an appeal is made to the secular authority; the courts when so called on must perform their functions as in other cases. [¶] Religious organizations come before us in the same attitude as other voluntary associations for benevolent or charitable purposes, and their rights of property, or of contract, are equally under the protection of the law, and the actions of their members subject to its restraints. ( Watson v. Jones (1871) 80 U.S. 679, 714 [20 L.Ed. 666].) Similarly, in its most recent decision involving a church property dispute, the court stated, There can be little doubt about the general authority of civil courts to resolve this question. The State has an obvious and legitimate interest in the peaceful resolution of property disputes, and in providing a civil forum where the ownership of church property can be determined conclusively. ( Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. at p. 602.) (For cases from this court, see, e.g., Rosicrucian Fellow v. Rosicrucian Etc. Ch. (1952) 39 Cal.2d 121, 131 [245 P.2d 481]; Wheelock v. First Presb. Church (1897) 119 Cal. 477, 482 [51 P. 841].) But when called on to resolve church property disputes, secular courts must not entangle themselves in disputes over church doctrine or infringe on the right to free exercise of religion. In this regard, the United States Supreme Court has made two points clear: (1) how state courts resolve church property disputes is a matter of state law; but (2) the method a state chooses must not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. [2] [T]he First Amendment prohibits civil courts from resolving church property disputes on the basis of religious doctrine and practice. [Citations.] As a corollary to this commandment, the Amendment requires that civil courts defer to the resolution of issues of religious doctrine or polity by the highest court of a hierarchical church organization. [Citations.] Subject to these limitations, however, the First Amendment does not dictate that a State must follow a particular method of resolving church property disputes. Indeed, `a State may adopt any one of various approaches for settling church property disputes so long as it involves no consideration of doctrinal matters, whether the ritual and liturgy of worship or the tenets of faith.' ( Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. at p. 602, quoting Md. & Va. Churches v. Sharpsburg Ch. (1970) 396 U.S. 367, 368 [24 L.Ed.2d 582, 90 S.Ct. 499] (conc. opn. of Brennan, J.).) The high court found invalid, for example, a method used in Georgia whereby the right to the property previously used by the local churches was made to turn on a civil court jury decision as to whether the general church abandoned or departed from the tenets of faith and practice it held at the time the local churches affiliated with it. ( Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church, supra, 393 U.S. at p. 441.) The court held that the civil courts [have] no role in determining ecclesiastical questions in the process of resolving property disputes. ( Id. at p. 447.) It explained that the First Amendment commands civil courts to decide church property disputes without resolving underlying controversies over religious doctrine. Hence, States, religious organizations, and individuals must structure relationships involving church property so as not to require the civil courts to resolve ecclesiastical questions. ( Hull Church, at p. 449.) The court concluded that the departure-from-doctrine approach requires the civil court to determine matters at the very core of a religionthe interpretation of particular church doctrines and the importance of those doctrines to the religion. Plainly, the First Amendment forbids civil courts from playing such a role. ( Id. at p. 450; see also Serbian Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich (1976) 426 U.S. 696, 698 [49 L.Ed.2d 151, 96 S.Ct. 2372] [inquiries made by the Illinois Supreme Court into matters of ecclesiastical cognizance and polity and the court's actions pursuant thereto contravened the First and Fourteenth Amendments].) The court remanded the matter to the Georgia Supreme Court to develop a new method for resolving church property disputes. ( Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church, supra, at pp. 450-452.) The high court has approved two methods for adjudicating church property disputes. The first approach is one the court itself adopted in the 19th century. ( Watson v. Jones, supra, 80 U.S. 679.) [3] This approach is often called the principle of government approach. (See Watson v. Jones, supra, 80 U.S. at p. 725.) The Watson v. Jones court distinguished between two types of church disputes. One has reference to the case of a church of a strictly congregational or independent organization, governed solely within itself ...; and to property held by such a church, either by way of purchase or donation, with no other specific trust attached to it in the hands of the church than that it is for the use of that congregation as a religious society. ( Id. at pp. 724-725.) In such cases, the court explained, where there is a schism which leads to a separation into distinct and conflicting bodies, the rights of such bodies to the use of the property must be determined by the ordinary principles which govern voluntary associations. ( Id. at p. 725.) Another type, which the court said is the one which is oftenest found in the courts, involves a hierarchical structure, i.e., a religious congregation which is itself part of a large and general organization of some religious denomination, with which it is more or less intimately connected by religious views and ecclesiastical government. ( Id. at p. 726.) In the latter case, the court said, we are bound to look at the fact that the local congregation is itself but a member of a much larger and more important religious organization, and is under its government and control, and is bound by its orders and judgments. ( Id. at pp. 726-727.) The court adopted this test for a hierarchical church: [W]henever the questions of discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law have been decided by the highest of these church judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final, and as binding on them, in their application to the case before them. ( Watson v. Jones, supra, 80 U.S. at p. 727; see also Serbian Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, supra, 426 U.S. at p. 710 [quoting this language and describing it as the rule applicable to hierarchical churches].) The second approach the high court has approved is what it called the `neutral principles of law' approach. ( Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. at p. 597.) The court first mentioned such a possible approach in Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church, supra, 393 U.S. 440: And there are neutral principles of law, developed for use in all property disputes, which can be applied without `establishing' churches to which property is awarded. ( Id. at p. 449.) A year later, in a brief per curiam opinion, the high court upheld Maryland's resolution of a church property dispute that relied upon provisions of state statutory law governing the holding of property by religious corporations, upon language in the deeds conveying the properties in question to the local church corporations, upon the terms of the charters of the corporations, and upon provisions in the constitution of the General Eldership pertinent to the ownership and control of church property. ( Md. & Va. Churches v. Sharpsburg Ch., supra, 396 U.S. at p. 367, fn. omitted.) [4] Because this approach involved no inquiry into religious doctrine, the high court dismissed the appeal as one involving no substantial federal question. (396 U.S. at p. 368; see also id. at p. 370 (conc. opn. of Brennan, J.) [discussing the neutral principles approach in greater detail].) The high court definitively approved the neutral principles approach in Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. 595, a 1979 decision that is the high court's most recent on this subject and, hence, is of critical importance to the instant dispute. After that court had invalidated Georgia's method for resolving church property disputes ( Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church, supra, 393 U.S. 440), Georgia adopted a new approach. The high court considered that new approach in Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. 595. It summarized the issue at the outset: This case involves a dispute over the ownership of church property following a schism in a local church affiliated with a hierarchical church organization. The question for decision is whether civil courts, consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, may resolve the dispute on the basis of `neutral principles of law,' or whether they must defer to the resolution of an authoritative tribunal of the hierarchical church. ( Id. at p. 597.) The high court reviewed three Georgia Supreme Court opinions that postdated the remand in Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church, supra, 393 U.S. 440. It explained that after the remand, the Georgia Supreme Court adopted what is now known as the `neutral principles of law' method for resolving church property disputes. The [Georgia Supreme Court] examined the deeds to the properties, the state statutes dealing with implied trusts [citation], and the Book of Church Order to determine whether there was any basis for a trust in favor of the general church. ( Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. at p. 600.) In all three of the Georgia Supreme Court cases, the deeds to the disputed property were in the name of the local church. In two of them, including the case the Jones v. Wolf court was reviewing, no statute or church document created a trust in favor of the general church. In those cases, the Georgia Supreme Court awarded the property to the local church. ( Id. at pp. 600-601.) In the third case, however, involving a dispute within the United Methodist Church, the high court explained that the Georgia Supreme Court observed, however, that the constitution of The United Methodist Church, its Book of Discipline, contained an express trust provision in favor of the general church. On this basis, the church property was awarded to the denominational church. ( Ibid., fn. omitted.) The Jones v. Wolf court upheld Georgia's neutral principles approach, although it remanded the particular case to the Georgia Supreme Court for further proceedings on a narrow point irrelevant to the issue of this case. [5] It recognized advantages inherent in that approach. The primary advantages of the neutral-principles approach are that it is completely secular in operation, and yet flexible enough to accommodate all forms of religious organization and polity. The method relies exclusively on objective, well-established concepts of trust and property law familiar to lawyers and judges. It thereby promises to free civil courts completely from entanglement in questions of religious doctrine, polity, and practice. Furthermore, the neutral-principles analysis shares the peculiar genius of private-law systems in general flexibility in ordering private rights and obligations to reflect the intentions of the parties. Through appropriate reversionary clauses and trust provisions, religious societies can specify what is to happen to church property in the event of a particular contingency, or what religious body will determine the ownership in the event of a schism or doctrinal controversy. In this manner, a religious organization can ensure that a dispute over the ownership of church property will be resolved in accord with the desires of the members. ( Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. at pp. 603-604.) The court also recognized potential difficulties inherent in the neutral principles approach. The neutral-principles method, at least as it has evolved in Georgia, requires a civil court to examine certain religious documents, such as a church constitution, for language of trust in favor of the general church. 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. In addition, there may be cases where the deed, the corporate charter, or the constitution of the general church incorporates religious concepts in the provisions relating to the ownership of property. If in such a case the interpretation of the instruments of ownership would require the civil court to resolve a religious controversy, then the court must defer to the resolution of the doctrinal issue by the authoritative ecclesiastical body. ( Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. at p. 604.) Despite these potential difficulties, the high court concluded that the promise of nonentanglement and neutrality inherent in the neutral-principles approach more than compensates for what will be occasional problems in application. These problems, in addition, should be gradually eliminated as recognition is given to the obligation of `States, religious organizations, and individuals [to] structure relationships involving church property so as not to require the civil courts to resolve ecclesiastical questions.' [Citation.] We therefore hold that a State is constitutionally entitled to adopt neutral principles of law as a means of adjudicating a church property dispute. ( Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. at p. 604, quoting Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church, supra, 393 U.S. at p. 449.) Early cases from this court resolving church property disputes generally cited Watson v. Jones, supra, 80 U.S. 679, the only then existing United States Supreme Court decision on the subject. (See Rosicrucian Fellow v. Rosicrucian Etc. Ch., supra, 39 Cal.2d at p. 131; Committee of Missions v. Pacific Synod (1909) 157 Cal. 105, 122 [106 P. 395]; Horsman v. Allen (1900) 129 Cal. 131, 135 [61 P. 796]; Wheelock v. First Presb. Church, supra, 119 Cal. at p. 485; Baker v. Ducker (1889) 79 Cal. 365, 374 [21 P. 764].) This court has not had occasion to consider the neutral principles approach in a church property case since its development. [6] The Courts of Appeal have, however, adopted and consistently used it. ( Concord Christian Center v. Open Bible Standard Churches (2005) 132 Cal.App.4th 1396, 1411 [34 Cal.Rptr.3d 412]; California-Nevada Annual Conf. of the United Methodist Church v. St. Luke's United Methodist Church (2004) 121 Cal.App.4th 754, 762-764 [17 Cal.Rptr.3d 442]; Guardian Angel Polish Nat. Catholic Church of L.A., Inc. v. Grotnik (2004) 118 Cal.App.4th 919, 930 [13 Cal.Rptr.3d 552]; Singh v. Singh (2004) 114 Cal.App.4th 1264, 1280-1281 [9 Cal.Rptr.3d 4]; Korean United Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of the Pacific (1991) 230 Cal.App.3d 480, 497-499, 503 [281 Cal.Rptr. 396]; Protestant Episcopal Church v. Barker, supra, 115 Cal.App.3d at p. 615; Presbytery of Riverside v. Community Church of Palm Springs (1979) 89 Cal.App.3d 910, 919-923 [152 Cal.Rptr. 854] ( Presbytery of Riverside ); In re Metropolitan Baptist Church of Richmond, Inc. (1975) 48 Cal.App.3d 850, 858-859 [121 Cal.Rptr. 899]; see also Metropolitan Philip v. Steiger (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 923, 929, fn. 7 [98 Cal.Rptr.2d 605] [not deciding whether the neutral principles approach is valid because the case turned on an ecclesiastical dispute requiring the court to defer to the ecclesiastical authorities].) The Court of Appeal in this case criticized these Court of Appeal decisions for, in its view, violating principles of stare decisis. The Court of Appeal believed that early cases of this court specifically adopted the principle of government approach, thus precluding the more recent Courts of Appeal from adopting the neutral principles approach. We disagree. As explained in the Court of Appeal opinion containing the most thorough examination of this question ( Presbytery of Riverside, supra, 89 Cal.App.3d 910), the principle of government method of Watson v. Jones, supra, 80 U.S. 679, and the neutral principles method of Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. 595, are not mutually exclusive, but can be reconciled. [7] In any event, this court unquestionably has authority to adopt the neutral principles approach. Watson v. Jones, supra, 80 U.S. at page 727, held that secular courts must accept as binding any church adjudication regarding questions of discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law.... As Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. 595, makes clear, this remains the rule. Secular courts may not decide questions involving church doctrine or faith. But this rule does not prevent courts from using neutral principles of law to resolve a church property dispute that does not turn on questions of church doctrine: However, when the dispute to be resolved is essentially ownership or right to possession of property, the civil courts appropriately adjudicate the controversy even though it may arise out of a dispute over doctrine or other ecclesiastical question, provided the court can resolve the property dispute without attempting to resolve the underlying ecclesiastical controversy. ( Presbytery of Riverside, supra, 89 Cal.App.3d at p. 920.) As the Presbytery of Riverside court explained, [i]n Watson v. Jones the court was asked to decree the termination of an implied trust because of alleged departures from doctrine by the general church. (See Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church, supra, 393 U.S. at p. 445....) Thus the dispute involved in the case was purely ecclesiastical. ( Id. at p. 921.) (4) The Presbytery of Riverside court also discussed early decisions of this court and concluded that, although they cited and applied the rule of Watson v. Jones, supra, 80 U.S. 679, they do not preclude use of neutral principles of law to decide church property disputes that do not turn on questions of church doctrine. ( Presbytery of Riverside, supra, 89 Cal.App.3d at pp. 922-923.) As did the court in Protestant Episcopal Church v. Barker, supra, 115 Cal.App.3d at page 614 (and implicitly the more recent Court of Appeal decisions using the neutral principles approach), we find the discussion in Presbytery of Riverside, supra, 89 Cal.App.3d 910, persuasive. Subject to the proviso that secular courts may not decide questions of church doctrine, we believe that California courts should use neutral principles of law to decide church property disputes. Accordingly, we conclude that secular courts called on to resolve church property disputes should proceed as follows: State courts must not decide questions of religious doctrine; those are for the church to resolve. Accordingly, if resolution of a property dispute involves a point of doctrine, the court must defer to the position of the highest ecclesiastical authority that has decided the point. But to the extent the court can resolve a property dispute without reference to church doctrine, it should apply neutral principles of law. The court should consider sources such as the deeds to the property in dispute, the local church's articles of incorporation, the general church's constitution, canons, and rules, and relevant statutes, including statutes specifically concerning religious property, such as Corporations Code section 9142. (See Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. at p. 600 [upholding Georgia's use of such sources]; Md. & Va. Churches v. Sharpsburg Ch., supra, 396 U.S. 367 [upholding Maryland's use of such sources]; Protestant Episcopal Church v. Barker, supra, 115 Cal.App.3d at p. 621.)