A summary and expeditious statutory remedy used by a party entitled to actual possession of premises to secure its possession, where the occupant initially in lawful possession of it refuses to relinquish it when his or her right to possession ends.Los Angeles Superior Court case BC487079 covers the opposing efforts by the St Mary's elected and ACA-appointed vestries to eject each other from the parish property. It reached the appeals court due to earlier errors by two judges. The first error, by Judge Jones in May 2012, was, as she expressed it, to involve herself in an ecclesiastical issue, which was the question of whether the Patrimony of the Primate had been properly dissolved. She reversed herself and dissolved the temporary restraining order she'd granted against the elected vestry. However, she then decided that she couldn't involve herself any further in the case, and she did not act to remove the ACA-appointed vestry from the property, since they refused to leave it voluntarily.
This resulted in the elected vestry's forcible detainer action, and this in turn raised the question of who was the lawful owner of the property. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Linfield attempted to resolve this during a summary judgment hearing on August 22, 2012, ruling that the control of the parish property, including who was rector and who was on the vestry, was an ecclesiastical issue in which the court could not involve itself. The practical result was to leave the ACA and its appointed vestry in control of the parish. Many observers, as well as the elected vestry's counsel, felt this was an absurd decision, and eventually the appeals court agreed.
The appeals court noted,
[I]n its most recent decision involving a church property dispute, the [US Supreme] 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.’It concluded,
[W]hile courts must avoid deciding questions of religious doctrine when presented with disputes between a local church and a national church, courts have a duty to examine the governing documents of the local and national churches to determine whether the dispute at issue may be resolved without reference to religious doctrine, and can instead be resolved by application of neutral principles of law.The appeals court then went on to review the St Mary's articles of incorporation and bylaws, the composition of the vestry, and the vestry's eligibility to hold an election revising the bylaws. Although the elected vestry and Fr Kelley had argued that the ACA's chancellors had ruled the Patrimony was a separate jurisdiction, and in announcing the dissolution of the Patrimony, the ACA House of Bishops specifically said that parishes would need to apply to rejoin the ACA, the appeals court apparently agreed with Judge Jones in the initial action that this was an ecclesiastical issue in which the courts could not involve themselves.
As a result, the appeals court focused on the issue of the August 6, 2012 vote to amend the parish bylaws and leave the ACA. However, the court also affirmed Judge Linfield's factual finding of the vestry membership as determined by the February 5, 2012 election. It went beyond that finding to say that, following review of the ACA Canons and the parish bylaws, Anthony Morello and the ACA had no authority to remove or appoint vestry members. As a result, it determined that as of August 6, 2012, the vestry consisted of the members elected on February 5, with some changes due to resignations and reelections.
The appeals court decided that there were two issues in the August 2012 trial with Judge Linfield, first, whether the ACA's jurisdiction was an ecclesiastical matter in which the court could not involve itself, and second, whether the August 6, 2012 vote to leave the ACA was valid. Since Judge Linfield wrongly decided the case on the first issue, the trial never reached a decision on the second issue, and the appeals court sent the case back to trial on the second issue.
It will be up to the new trial in April 2015 to determine whether the August 6, 2012 vote was valid.
