St. James loses court case

A Newport Beach parish’s fight to keep church property it claims belongs to the congregation may go as high as the U.S. Supreme Court after the state Supreme Court rejected its argument, an attorney for parishioners of St. James Anglican Church said Monday.

“I do know that the people of St. James have continued to reflect upon their decision in 2004 to change religious affiliation and still have a very strong view,” said Eric Sohlgren, representing the parish. “We’ll just have to see how it unfolds in the courts and where we go from here.”

The California State Supreme Court ruled Monday that St. James worshipers do not own the church property they’ve worshiped on for more than 50 years because when they decided to split from the general Episcopal Church almost five years ago, it violated an agreement with the larger church and forfeited the rights to the property.

In a 6-1 decision, the court ruled that the larger Episcopal Church owned the property when Newport Beach’s St. James Parish joined the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in 1949 and agreed to the larger Episcopal Church’s rules.

“Although the deeds to the property have long been in the name of the local church, that church agreed from the beginning of its existence to be part of the great church and to be bound by its governing documents,” wrote Justice Ming Chin. “When it disaffiliated from the general church, the local church did not have the right to take the church property with it.”

“The ruling is final, conclusive, definitive,” said John Shiner, who represents the diocese. “I certainly think it’s a decision that will have considerable precedent value on other courts not only throughout the state but throughout the nation.”

The court’s decision has an immediate impact in Long Beach, La Crescenta and North Hollywood, too, where members realigned themselves with the Anglican Province of Uganda, like St. James’ worshipers. Church members split with the larger Episcopal Church after it ordained openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire in 2003. A dispute over biblical authority and interpretation, including the congregation’s view that the diocese had become too liberal regarding the divinity of Jesus, led to the August 2004 split.

The argument came down to St. James attorneys claiming the parish owned the church property because they held the deed at 3209 Via Lido in Newport Beach since 1950, while the diocese’s attorneys argued that when they joined the diocese, the church became the property of the diocese.

In 1979, the Episcopal Church amended its canon to say that all property held by any parish is held in trust for the church, as long as it remains part of the church.

“It seems to be giving credence to a rule passed in 1979. Thirty years after St. James already owned the property,” Sohlgren said. “My concern about this ruling is it creates a constitutional problem. How can they pass a rule when they’re not even the owner of the property? We think this is a constitutional issue giving preferential treatment for denominations.”

Chin recognized that the secular court should not get involved in a religious-freedom constitutional issue, but said this dispute could be resolved by considering the deeds, state law, the articles of incorporation and the national church’s canon and rules.

It the lone dissenting opinion, Justice Joyce Kennard agreed with the outcome, but not with the reasoning behind it. Kennard argued that if the court was going strictly by so-called “neutral standards,” such as property deeds, St. James Parish should win out.

The Episcopal Church’s 1979 declaration that the parish was holding the property for it in trust doesn’t matter because there isn’t any law that upholds it, Kennard wrote.

Kennard argued the court should have opted for using the “principal of government” approach, which says whatever the highest level of the church’s hierarchy says — in this case that the property belongs to the diocese — goes.

Sohlgren said the court’s reasoning gives him hope they can win an argument in the country’s highest court, should it go that far.

“The bottom line is simply that the general church, not the local church, owns the property,” said the Very Rev’d Canon Peter Haynes of Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church in Corona del Mar. “I think that’s right. We’re broader than the congregational organization.”

Haynes said the arguing is the devil’s work, and he hopes to work with St. James parishioners in the future.

“I hope they can let go of hard feelings and we can do what we were doing before,” he said.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.