Court Opinion

ID: 9781730
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:19:10.723888+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:13:32.409708
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (Episcopal Church) owns the property to which St. James Parish in Newport Beach (St. James Parish) has held title since 1950. This conclusion is compelled by Corporations Code section 9142, subdivision (c)(2). But I disagree with the majority that this provision, which applies only to religious corporations, reflects a “neutral principles of law” approach.
I
St. James Parish began in 1946 as a mission of the Episcopal Church. In 1949, it incorporated and became a parish of the Episcopal Church. Since 1950, the parish has held the deed to the property on which the parish’s church building stands. Ownership of the property is at issue here.
*494In 1979, the Episcopal Church added section 4 to its Canon 1.7 to provide that all property held by any of its parishes is held in trust for the Episcopal Church. In 2004, St. James Parish ended its affiliation with the Episcopal Church, and it amended its articles of incorporation to delete any reference to the Episcopal Church.
Thereafter, the Episcopal Church, its Los Angeles Diocese, and a congregation member who voted against the decision of the parish to disaffiliate brought these actions, asserting that the property at issue was being held in trust for the Episcopal Church. The trial court ruled for St. James Parish; the Court of Appeal reversed. This court granted review.
II
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment (Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) 310 U.S. 296, 303-304 [84 L.Ed. 1213, 60 S.Ct. 900]), states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .” Because of the risks of inhibiting the free development of religion and entangling secular interests in ecclesiastical concerns, the “First Amendment severely circumscribes the role that civil courts may play in resolving church property disputes.” (Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church (1969) 393 U.S. 440, 449 [21 L.Ed.2d 658, 89 S.Ct. 601].) In this regard, the United States Supreme Court has identified two constitutionally permissible approaches that civil courts may use when called upon to resolve disputes relating to church property.
One is the “principle of government” approach: When the dispute involves a hierarchical church, as here the Episcopal Church, civil courts must accept decisions made at the highest level of the church hierarchy. (Watson v. Jones (1871) 80 U.S. 679, 727 [20 L.Ed. 666].)
The other is the “neutral principles of law” approach. That concept, as used in the context of a civil court’s resolution of church property disputes, simply permits application of “objective, well-established concepts of trust and property law familiar to lawyers and judges.” (Jones v. Wolf (1919) 443 U.S. 595, 603 [61 L.Ed.2d 775, 99 S.Ct. 3020].) These are “principles or rules of law ‘developed for use in all property disputes’ whether or not the litigants are religious associations or corporations.” (Presbytery of Riverside v. Community Church of Palm Springs (1979) 89 Cal.App.3d 910, 923, fin. 2 [152 Cal.Rptr. 854].)
The United States Supreme Court has left it to the states to decide which approach to adopt. (Jones v. Wolf supra, 443 U.S. at p. 602.)
*495In 1982, the California Legislature amended Corporations Code section 9142 by adding, as relevant here, subdivision (c)(2). That provision permits the assets of a religious corporation to be made subject to a trust when “the articles or bylaws of the corporation, or the governing instruments of a superior religious body or general church of which the corporation is a member, so expressly provide.” Thus, as the majority notes (maj. opn., ante, at p. 488), through legislative fiat a “superior religious body or general church” may unilaterally create trusts in its favor over property held by the smaller church that was a member of the general church when the trust was created. That occurred here when in 1979 the Episcopal Church added section 4 to its Canon 1.7 to unilaterally provide that all property held by any parish is held in trust for the Episcopal Church.
Applying California’s statute in resolving church property disputes, the majority concludes that the Episcopal Church now is the owner of the St. James Parish property in question. I agree.
But that conclusion is not based on neutral principles of law.1 No principle of trust law exists that would allow the unilateral creation of a trust by the declaration of a nonowner of property that the owner of the property is holding it in trust for the nonowner. (California-Nevada Annual Conf. of the United Methodist Church v. St. Luke’s United Methodist Church (2004) 121 Cal.App.4th 754, 769 [17 Cal.Rptr.3d 442].) If a neutral principle of law approach were applied here, the Episcopal Church might well lose because the 1950 deed to the disputed property is in the name of St. James Parish,2 and the Episcopal Church’s 1979 declaration that the parish was holding the property in trust for the Episcopal Church is of no legal consequence.
But under the principle of government approach, the Episcopal Church wins because that method makes the decision of the highest authority of a hierarchical church, here the Episcopal Church, binding on a civil court. This result is constitutional, but only because the dispute involves religious bodies and then only because the principle of government approach, permissible under the First Amendment, allows a state to give unbridled deference to the superior religious body or general church.
*496In my view, Corporations Code section 9142 reflects the principle of government approach. That statute allows a hierarchical church, such as the Episcopal Church here, through its bylaws to unilaterally impose a trust on the property of a local member parish. The statute does not state a neutral principle of law; rather, it creates a special principle applicable solely to religious corporations.
Respondents’ petition for a rehearing was denied February 25, 2009, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above.

 In footnote 4, page 481, the majority asserts that neutral principles of law “include application of statutes specifically governing religious property.” I disagree. In the United States Supreme Court’s usage, neutral principles of law refer to laws that apply in the same way regardless of whether property is church property. (Jones v. Wolf, supra, 443 U.S. at p. 603 [The neutral-principles approach “relies exclusively on objective, well-established concepts of trust and property law familiar to lawyers and judges”].)

 “The owner of the legal title to property is presumed to be the owner of the full beneficial title.” (Evid. Code, § 662.)