Ruminating On The Legal Outlook

I'm told -- I didn't see it myself -- that following the court hearing Monday, Mrs Bush could be seen and heard loudly berating poor Mr Lancaster in the courthouse hallway. As I understand it, public reprimands of Mr Lancaster from Mrs Bush, an intemperate woman, are nothing unusual, and it's likely she'd call him out if the weather were not to her liking, leaving aside any legal failing. I'm told, though, that in the same hallway discussion, "Bishop" Rhys Williams's face was "beet red".

Judge Murphy's ruling can only be seen as a disaster for the Bush group and the ACA, in fact. It has numerous implications for the St Mary's ongoing legal strategy, on which it is probably not helpful for me to speculate. But leaving that aside, it establishes that in one important case, the Bush group is not the vestry, and the ACA has no authority over the parish. The attorney for Church Mutual Insurance was present at Monday's hearing, since it has a direct bearing on The Rector, Wardens, and Vestrymen of St. Mary of The Angels' Parish et al v. Church Mutual Insurance Company et al., which I covered most recently here.

Church Mutual's position is that the Bush group is not the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry and does not have standing to sue. Judge Murphy's ruling helps Church Mutual's case tremendously. The possibility that Bush et al will have their legal bills reimbursed by Church Mutual looks more and more remote.

In fact, the appeals court's ruling made it hard to avoid that in this and other related cases, the California courts would follow the precedent established in the "Episcopal church cases", whereby neutral principles of law would determine who controlled the parish, which went to the question of who was the vestry. The vestry was the one elected according to the parish bylaws, irrespective of whether the ACA could try to pick off any individual members by excommunicating them.

Judge Strobel's 2015 finding of fact in this matter was independent of Judge Murphy's recent summary judgment: both were separate and based on the appeals court's opinion. Without a better bugging device, I don't know exactly why Mrs Bush was cussing Mr Lancaster out on Monday, but if it was for any good reason, it should have been for misleading her and the ACA on their likelihood of success in this case.

When I last discussed the Church Mutual case, I said

Here's the puzzling thing: since last October, the squatters have gradually been running out of money. Since being evicted, they don't even have plate and pledge from Sunday masses, although a bulletin from their last mass discovered in the nave directs any remaining loyalists to make future checks payable to something called "Perseverance Mission". Perseverance Mission, I have a feeling, will not be in much of a position to fund further legal work.

However, I'm told that records left behind in the parish building by the Bush group include meeting minutes that indicate they had lost their tax exempt status. One can only speculate that any money removed from St Mary's parish accounts and transferred to "Perseverance Mission" created a taxable event, but how this could affect Mrs Bush's and the ACA's standing with the IRS I don't know.

I'm still wondering, though, where the money for all this has been coming from. I'm told that Lytton, Williams, Messina & Hankin LLP, the firm representing the Bush group in their suit against Church Mutual, will be in court for that case on January 9. I assume they will be paid, and those in attendance at the meeting of St Mary's friends and counsel on Monday speculate that Mr Lancaster is also still being paid. Where on earth is this money coming from?