In an auction filed by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) against a breakaway Orange County congregation, a judge has rules that the national church has no claims to any of the land or property of its former parish.
Orange County Supreme Court Justice John K. McGuirk distinguished the dispute from other New York cases that found in favor of a national church; holding that the Presbyterian Church's system of governance lacked the hierarchical order of the Episcopal Church.
The decision may reverberate within New York as other conservative congregations rebel against the Presbyterian Church's position on such issues as the ordination of gay ministers.
The dispute began following the announcement by leaders of the 18-member First Presbyterian Church and Congregation of Ridgeberry of their intention to split from the national church in January 2005, exactly 200 years after the local congregation's incorporation. Ridgebury (formerly spelled as Ridgeberry) is a community within Wawayanda, a town of 6,000 about 75 miles north of Manhattan.
"I think they believed as a congregation that in order to prosper they had to sever the ties from a denomination that was leaving its biblical roots," said the church's attorney, Donald G. Nichol of the Walden office of Jacobowitz & Gubits. "Ridgebury is a Bible-believing congregation."
The Presbytery of Hudson River (which under the Presbyterian Book of Order oversees the Congregation of Ridgeberry) asserted that the local church's property, including its land, buildings, investment funds, furniture, and ecclesiastical and sacramental items, belonged to the Presbyterian Church, not the local, current congregation.
"This church was created as a Presbyterian church and throughout the years since the early 1800s all of the members of the church, those who constructed it and contributed to it and built and paved it, all considered themselves to be part of a Presbyterian denomination," said Frank Patton Jr. of Patton, Eakins, Lipsett, Holbrook & Savage, who represents the Presbytery of Hudson River. "What happened here is a very, very, very tiny group of people basically said, 'Hey, we're going to be a different kind of church, we don't like the liberal bent of the national Presbyterian Church, we're leaving and we're going to take the property, too."
When discussions with local church elders fell through, the presbytery, sough a declaration and injunctive relief protecting its ostensible interests in the church's assets.
The Church at Ridgebury, as the congregation is now known, moved to dismiss. Last week, in The Presbytery of Hudson River of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) v. Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church of Ridgebury, 6144/05, Justice McGuirk granted that motion.
The court relied on a similar 1984 Court of Appeals case that set forth a standard to be applied in property disputes between local churches and their national denominational counterparts, First Presbyterian Church of Schenectady v. United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 62 NY2d 110.
"[T]the focus is on the language of the deeds, the terms of the deeds, the terms of the local church charter, the State statutes governing the holding of church property, and the provisions in the constitution of the general church concerning the ownership and control of church property," the court ruled in Schenectady. "The court must determine from them whether there is any basis for a trust or similar restriction in favor of the general church."
Property Interest
In the present case, Justice McGuirk noted that the local congregation holds "a fee simple absolute interest in its property without restriction or limitation."
However, under Schenectady the court must still determine whether there is a secular basis for finding that parties intended to create a trust. Toward that end, the Presbytery of Hudson River argued that a 1981 amendment to its Book of Order, or rules, states that all property held by a particular church "is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)."
The issue in the present case, Justice McGuirk wrote, is whether this provision is enforceable. He held that it is not.
"It is hornbook property law that only the owner of real property can convey an interest in the property; B can not create a future interest in A's property without A's consent," Justice McGuirk ruled.
The judge distinguished the case from two other appellate decisions that held that local churches leaving the Episcopal Church "also had to leave behind their real property," Trustees of the Diocese of Albany v. Trinity Episcopal Church of Gloversville, 250 AD2d 282, and the Connecticut case of The Rector, Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity-St. Michael's Parish Inc. v. The Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Connecticut, 620 A.2d 1280.
Church Structure
However, the Presbyterian Church's system of rule distinguished the case, Justice McGuirk ruled.
"The Episcopal Church has a structure of government which follows, roughly, the models of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church pursuant to which a diocese is governed by a bishop to whom the parishes in the diocese owe ecclesiastical obedience," Justice McGuirk wrote. "The Presbyterian Church, following Calvinist tradition, has a different system of government. In the Schenectady case, the Court of Appeals specifically rejected the contention that an implied trust could not be found in the polity of the Presbyterian Church."
The defendants' attorney, Mr. Nichol, said the case establishes an important precedent for "biblical churches."
"The general principle is that the denomination can't change the ownership [of property] by a change of the constitution," Mr. Nichol said. "You can't just say it and make it so. It becomes a question of how the property was held."
Mr. Patton, who represented the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) along with partners John G. Lipsett and Matthew Martin, said his client will likely appeal.
"Our view, and I think it's supported by the cases, is that the Presbyterian Church really is a hierarchical church, the same way the Episcopal Church is," Mr. Patton said.
Michael Donnelly of Goshen's Dickover, Donnelly, Donovan & Biagi served as local counsel for the plaintiffs.
-Mark Fass can be reached at mfass@alm.com.
