Struggle for Control of Divinity School Aired in Court

In the courtroom, it sounded like a tale of big-business power plays and corporate intrigue, but the trial that opened Tuesday centered on a dispute between rivals over control of a divinity school.

At the center of the legal tug of war is Melodyland School of Theology, spawned by the success of Melodyland church in Anaheim which is headed by the Rev. Ralph Wilkerson. A group that “drifted away”--in the words of its lawyer--from church leadership claimed Tuesday that Wilkerson and others conspired last year to stack the school’s board of directors with followers of the pastor.

The Wilkerson faction allegedly posted armed guards and changed the locks at the school, then located on the site of a group of Melodyland buildings near Disneyland, blocking access by faculty and students last May.

Wilkerson and the church deny any wrongdoing and are demanding $2 million from the school directors for past rent, utilities, insurance and worker’s compensation payments.

As the trial got under way before Orange County Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ryan, much of the lawyers’ opening statements centered on assets, rental agreements and the validity of past elections of the school’s board of directors. Even the name of the school is in dispute, with both sides vying for the right to use it.

Jack Golden, lawyer for the school officials who say Wilkerson and the church locked them out, said they were forced to relocate the seminary about two miles away on West Ball Road. That site also houses Melodyland High School and Anaheim Christian College--both of which began on the Melodyland property.

Ryan, who is hearing the case without a jury, last fall issued an injunction that allowed faculty and students access to the old seminary library at the Melodyland church near Disneyland for specified hours each week. She temporarily stripped Wilkerson of control of many of the assets of the school.

The boards of directors of the two corporations running the church and the school overlapped for many years. But in 1984, the church “was having financial problems and began to pressure the school to pay for the facilities it used,” Golden told Ryan Tuesday.

Golden said he would prove the church gave the school the right to use facilities at the Melodyland complex rent free through 1987. The original lawsuit asked for $1,000 for each day access to those facilities was blocked and for $6 million in punitive damages.

Golden claimed the school “suffered a loss of students due to strife between the church and the school.”

“The irony is that running the Melodyland School of Theology does not involve a monetary benefit,” Jonathan A. Goldstein, lawyer for the church, said in an interview. “If you run the school, you lose money. Everybody understands that. It’s probably the only thing they do agree on. But the church feels it’s part of their obligation to run the school properly, and if the plaintiffs won’t, they will.”

Wilkerson and other church members felt that school officials had begun to use seminary assets to support the Melodyland High School and Anaheim Christian College, Goldstein said.

It was then that they moved to take back control.

“The Melodyland School of Theology was considered an outreach of the church, and up to that time, my clients felt it reflected the church in a favorable light,” Goldstein said.

At issue in the case are several elections of directors of the seminary, which reflected moves by the rival factions to take control of the school in 1984 and 1985.

Also to be resolved is whether the church ever legally agreed to allow the seminary to remain on church property.

The trial is expected to last into September.