Court Opinion

ID: 9726512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:54:10.027473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:27.868886
License: Public Domain

JON P. WILCOX, J.
¶ 55. (dissenting). I concur with Chief Justice Abrahamson's dissent; I agree that Wis. Stat. § 187.15 (1997-98) is problematic. I write separately only to emphasize that this dispute should be remanded to be resolved on the terms of the deed.
¶ 56. Although the majority characterizes the record as "sufficiently developed to allow us to address the parties' rights to the property," I disagree. Majority op. at ¶ 39. While the United Methodist Church (UMC) may or may not have a "beneficial interest" in the property, if such an interest does exist, it is unclear as to its nature and extent.1 Id. The deed states that the property is to be held:
*420in Trust for the Methodist Episcopal Church.. .upon the express condition and understanding that should the Wisconsin Conference of the Methodist-Episcopal Church neglect to send a minister to said Liberty-Prairie Circuit or should the Methodist Episcopal Church of the Liberty-Prairie Circuit become extinct or cease to exist from any cause or should a majority of the members of said church in said Circuit leave in consequence of nonaction or unrightous [sic] action on the subject if having by the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church then by a vote of two-thirds of the subscribers to a certain subscription paper bearing date the first day of March, Eighteen hundred Sixty....
In nay view, this language qualifies any beneficial interest that the UMC may have. It indicates that the grantor envisioned that a dispute could arise between the local church [Elo] and the hierarchical church [UMC] and created a contingency for such a scenario. Nevertheless, the language of the deed may very well be deemed ambiguous, requiring extrinsic evidence to discern the intent of the grantor. See Edlin v. Soderstrom, 83 Wis. 2d 58, 69, 264 N.W.2d 275 (1978) ("The construction of the deed is a matter of law unless there is an ambiguity requiring words or terms to be construed by extrinsic evidence, in which event the question becomes one of fact."). If the language of the deed is judged ambiguous, the record is clearly incomplete to resolve this dispute. The majority opinion implies as much by stating "[a]s far as we know, none of the contingencies described in the deed was encoun*421tered, and the record contains no indication of a two-thirds vote of the original donors." Majority op. at ¶ 4 n.3. The record is insufficiently developed to determine if any of the contingencies in the deed are met and there is no indication of a two-thirds vote of possible successors to the "subscribers" because the circuit court ruled in favor of the UMC on summary judgment.
¶ 57. Accordingly, this case should be remanded to determine whether the UMC has a beneficial interest and the nature and extent of any such beneficial interest in accordance with the neutral principles doctrine espoused in Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 603 (1979). The circuit court can determine whether the UMC is entitled to the property by first looking to the deed. If the circuit deems the language in the deed is ambiguous, it can then look to extrinsic evidence. Thus, I agree with Chief Justice Abrahamson that this case can be resolved without resorting to § 187.15.
¶ 58. For the reasons set forth above, I respectfully dissent.

 It is undisputed that the UMC requested a trust deed for the property in 1968 when The Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren to create the UMC and Elo refused the UMC's request. Wisconsin Conf. Bd. Of Trs. of the *420United Methodist Church, Inc. v. Culver, 2000 WI App 132, ¶ 5, 237 Wis. 2d 343, 614 N.W.2d 523. Such a request is inconsistent with unequivocal ownership of a beneficial interest as the majority portrays. Majority op. at ¶ 39.