Court Opinion

ID: 9607602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:00:30.239827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:39.441172
License: Public Domain

Blackburn, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate the plaintiffs’ claims regarding the defendants’ allegations of child abuse, inflicting bodily harm, thievery, and stealing government files. However, I disagree with the majority’s finding that the trial court impermissibly based its award of damages in part upon matters over which the court did not have jurisdiction, and which conclusion was the basis of the reversal of the trial court.
The damages award was entered in this case following a bench trial, and the language of the trial court’s order clearly indicates that it recognized the difference between claims ecclesiastical in nature and issues “not strictly . . . ecclesiastical.” Absent a showing to the contrary in the record, this Court presumes that the trial judge correctly separated the enforceable claims from the matters involving church doctrine and applied the pertinent law. There is no evidence in the record that the trial court’s findings were based on anything but the legitimate claims recognized by the majority: allegations of *855child abuse, inflicting bodily harm, thievery, and stealing government files.
Decided December 5, 1996.
Michael L. Wetzel, for appellants.
James D. McGuire, Birgit G. Nomura, for appellees.
While the majority concludes that because a default judgment was entered for the plaintiffs, the trial court impermissibly based its award on religious matters, there is no factual basis in the record of the unreported hearing to support such a conclusion. The majority inappropriately bases its result on a determination that the trial court based its award in part on many of plaintiffs’ claims which involve matters over which this Court has no jurisdiction. Without regard to the matter of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, such “ecclesiastical” allegations simply state no cause of action in tort under Georgia law. These claims could not be the basis for any award in tort without regard to the setting in which the conduct occurred, ecclesiastical or otherwise.
I agree with the majority that the judgment must be reversed with respect to the defendant, First United Church, Inc. The trial court erred in denying the church’s motion for new trial, because the complaint upon which the default judgment was based failed to state a claim against the church. This is true without regard to the ecclesiastical setting in which the torts occurred and without resort to the majority’s “ecclesiastical” analysis which is unnecessary and inappropriate. If the “ecclesiastical” comments were not slanderous, their utterance did not constitute slander, and there was no tort arising therefrom.
Because we have reversed the trial court’s holding as to First United Church, Inc., and it is not possible to determine to what extent such defendant’s conduct contributed to the court’s joint and several award against the collective defendants, I agree that the trial court’s order must be vacated and remanded to the trial court for its review of its award, consistent with this opinion. Thereafter, the parties would be entitled to appeal the issue of excessiveness of the award which we have not addressed here at that time as may be appropriate.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Birdsong joins in this special concurrence.