Representatives of the Episcopal Church implied if they were victorious in the lawsuit and St. Vincent’s property was indeed vacated, it would be used for mission work. This was not the case when the building sheltering The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in New York City, valued at $386,400, was forced to be vacated and then sold for $50,000 in order to house the Islamic Awareness Center. Time magazine’s David Van Biema reported that Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church “would rather see the churches sold and deconsecrated for secular purposes than passed on to the departing congregations.”

I wonder what kind of message is being sent to the world as ecclesiastical focus shifts from charity to greed. Is it not permissible to just walk away during a disagreement instead of suing one another? I remember those preschoolers in that tiny chapel during the late ’70s settling differences on the playground by a handshake. God bless this grownup mess.

Read it all.

The diocese has received good news this month from two federal courts: Two suits initiated in 2010 against diocesan leadership have been stayed until the appeal of the primary suit has run its course in state courts, and a third will not impede an arbitration process already under way.

On Wednesday, May 11, in Fort Worth, federal court judge Terry Means responded favorably to two motions filed by the Diocese seeking to stay the intellectual-property suits brought against Bishop Iker last fall. One, brought by The Episcopal Church last September, seeks to seize control of the diocesan seal and the name “The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.” The other, filed a month later by All Saints’ Church on Crestline Road in Fort Worth, alleged that Bishop Iker had been using the parish’s seal and had improperly bestowed its name on another congregation. Subsequently Fr. Darryl Pigeon and the vestry of his Fort Worth congregation were added as defendants. Judge Means stayed the first suit in December; his decision of Wednesday confirms and extends that order. The stay on the All Saints’ suit is the first order he has issued in that case.

Read it all and follow the links also.

On May 4, in response to a Complaint filed April 25 in federal district court by the Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Company [PIIC], the Diocese filed a Motion to Stay the suit pending the results of an arbitration which had already commenced between the parties.

The suit, which is the fifth action against the Diocese and its elected leaders in the last 24 months, was announced on the Web site of the local TEC-affiliated congregations, led by Bishop Wallis Ohl.

Read it all and follow the links to the two documents.

From here:

…[On] April 28, Judge John Chupp will determine to what extent he will permit the local minority group aligned with TEC to conduct discovery with regard to the Motion to Set Supersedeas Bond* that has been filed by our attorneys. We are asking Judge Chupp to permit the Diocese and our 48 congregations to continue to have possession of the property while the case is being appealed, without the necessity of posting a large bond. The local minority group wants to take depositions and conduct other discovery, including inspections of the property, ostensibly for the purpose of developing evidence to support their argument that a substantial bond should be required as a condition for the continued possession of the property by the Diocese and its congregations during the appeal.

According to David Weaver, who is representing our congregations, “Since the plaintiffs likely will not prevail on the bond issue, they are attempting a flanking maneuver by seeking permission from the Court to allow them to engage in expensive discovery procedures.”

Please keep the hearing in your prayers, and, if possible, plan to attend. The 141st District Court is located on the fourth floor of the Family Law Center on Weatherford Street in Fort Worth.

*A supersedeas bond is a deposit made during an appeal process when the case involves property and the party making the appeal wishes to delay full payment until the process concludes

From here:

Following the sever-and-stay order issued April 5 by the 141st district court, leaders of the Diocese and Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth will file a Notice of Appeal with the trial court early in the week of April 11. We will dispute the court’s ruling that all our property is held in trust for TEC; on the contrary, the property is held for the benefit of the local congregation, as our Constitution and Canons plainly state.

Our attorneys anticipate making the appeal directly to the Texas State Supreme Court. It is within the Court’s discretion to take the case directly, or to require that we go first to the intermediate Court of Appeals. Since all parties agree that the case will come inevitably before the high court, we hope to save both the time and expense of an intermediate appeal as we seek resolution to the litigation brought against us, which has been so distracting from our mission for the past two years.

As an additional result of the April 5 order, all discovery in the case is now on hold. The plaintiffs’ proposed property inspections will not be carried out. Nor will the judge’s Feb. 8 order to surrender our property be enforced during this period: Our congregations will not be evicted from their churches for the duration of this process, if ever.

We give thanks for the opportunity to appeal our case, and we continue to pray for our attorneys as we move on to this very important phase of the litigation.

Two senior priests of the Diocese of Fort Worth have left the breakaway Anglo-Catholic diocese for the Anglican Ordinariate.

On March 8, Bishop Jack Iker announced that his number two man, Canon Charles Hough, and Fr. Louis Tobola had resigned their posts effective March 31.

The bishop noted Canon Hough had served as Canon to the Ordinary for the past 17 years, and he and Fr. Tobola had each served for over 30 years in the diocese. “Though they have not yet resigned from the ordained ministry, they are expected to do so at the time the Ordinariate is established for former Anglicans who wish to come into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church,” Bishop Iker said.

Read it all.

When the Diocese realigned in November 2008, a small minority of our members elected to leave their churches to worship elsewhere. The following April, the Diocese was sued on behalf of those people, and two years later we are still in the midst of what will be a precedent-setting case to defend our property under Texas law.

In the weeks since our last court hearing, on Feb. 8, our lawyers have been conferring and negotiating with the plaintiffs’ attorneys over the terms surrounding Judge John Chupp’s Jan. 21 ruling, which favored the plaintiffs. Since the Jan. 21 ruling did not dispose of the case, the parties are engaged in a process of “discovery” which permits them to obtain and examine one another’s records. Some of the documents requested by the plaintiffs previously have been delivered to them for inspection, and other documents currently are being prepared.

In addition, lawyers for the parishes and missions of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and lawyers representing the minority breakaway faction (affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America) are making arrangements for the inspection, requested by attorneys and representatives of the minority faction, of all our property, including the Diocesan Center, Camp Crucis, and all our churches. This inspection is being arranged pursuant to a Request for Entry Upon Property filed by the minority faction pursuant to Rule 196.7(a)(1) of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.
This rule provides that any party to a lawsuit may request and obtain entry upon the property of another party to the lawsuit “to inspect, measure, survey, photograph, test, or sample the property or any designated object or operation thereon.” The Rule is customarily and routinely invoked whenever there is litigation between competing parties with respect to which party has a right to title or possession of property. This is nothing to be alarmed about, though the other side is attempting to use it for propaganda purposes, to promote the impression that they have prevailed in the litigation, when, in fact, it is far from over.

Previous rulings by the Trial Court in the litigation pending in Tarrant County ”“ including the interlocutory Declaratory Judgment ”“ have no effect on the right of the minority faction to inspect the properties. According to Rule 197(a), the right of a party to inspect property in the possession of the other party exists until “the earlier of 30 days before the end of the discovery period or 30 days before trial.”

The motivation that underlies the minority faction’s decision to incur the thousands of dollars in expense for the inspection of the property in the Diocese is unknown to the attorneys and officers of the Diocese. Unfortunately, however, the Diocese will incur substantial expense, because the inspections by the minority faction must be supervised by the attorneys representing the Diocese and its parishes and missions.

Attorneys representing both sides of the dispute are attempting to schedule the inspections so as to minimize disruption of regularly scheduled activities and events sponsored by the Diocese and its parishes and missions.

Please keep him and Marilyn in your prayers. My understanding is that he is intending to pursue ministry in the Roman Catholic Church, likely under the provisions of the Ordinariate when that all becomes clear.

In a hearing today before the Hon. John Chupp, attorneys for the Diocese and Corporation persuaded him to grant all our objections to the Partial Summary Judgment orders he issued Jan. 21. As a result, The Episcopal Church authorities will not succeed in their efforts to force some 6,000 regular Sunday worshipers to vacate their churches any time in the near future – and perhaps never, depending on the results of an appeal of the case. As the appellate process proceeds, the Bishop, clergy, and elected lay leaders will continue to carry out their duties and ministries as in the past.

Read it all.

Read it all and follow the links.

A dispute within the church and the Fort Worth diocese has caused both to now worship at different buildings. But the ruling from the Judge John P. Chupp of the 141st District Court could signal a start to the reconciliation process and a return to the buildings they both said they’ve been a part of for many years.

“We are, of course, pleased with last week’s decisions,” said Coleman. “We hope it may hasten the day when our building at Burnett Street and Tenth will be returned to our use.”

The ongoing dispute several years in the making came to a crossroads this past Friday. Bishop Jack L. Iker is a leader of a movement to realign his followers under the South American-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, the branch of the church that is headquartered in Argentina.

Read it all.

Bishop Jack Iker said he and other area Episcopalians who left the national church will appeal a judge’s decision ordering his group to give up all property of the 24-county Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

Read it all.

Read it all and please follow the links as well.

The judge did not issue a decision of his own, but simply signed the pro forma orders submitted by ECUSA and the local Gulick parties. He made a few deletions in the former, to make it clear that he was deciding the case by deference to the “hierarchy” of the Episcopal Church (USA), and not on neutral principles of law. Indeed, he staked his all on a bet that the Texas higher courts would not follow the latter approach, since he struck out the proposed paragraph that would have said he would reach the same result under “neutral principles” analysis. Thus if the Court of Appeal rules that he should have applied neutral principles, he will have to start all over again.

Read it all.

On Friday afternoon, Jan. 21, attorneys for the Diocese and Corporation received two orders from the Hon. John Chupp in the matter of the main suit against us, in which a minority of former members has been joined by The Episcopal Church in an effort to claim diocesan property. Judge Chupp signed an order drafted by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, from which he struck several points with which he did not apparently agree. The order does find that TEC is a hierarchical church, and on that basis the judge has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The judge’s order can be read here.

Friday’s ruling from the trial court is a disappointment but not a disaster. The plaintiffs have offered no evidence, either in the courtroom or in their voluminous filings, supporting their claim that the Diocese was not entitled to withdraw from The Episcopal Church, as it did in November 2008. Nor have they demonstrated a legal right to our property, which is protected by Texas statutes regulating trusts and non-profit corporations.

Read it all.

The plaintiffs in the suit are TEC and local Episcopal parties who were in the minority when the Diocese voted to separate from TEC in 2008. Their representatives argued that once a parish joins TEC, “you are subject irrevocably to The Episcopal Church” and that the General Convention’s canons are “silent” on the subject of a diocese separating from the larger body because “it is inconceivable.” Ownership of property, one attorney argued, “is an ecclesiastical question.”

Representatives for the Diocese, Corporation, and the intervening parishes warned the judge that “other states have some crazy statutes,” but that Texas law does not permit a trust to be imposed on another person’s property without written consent, that no trust is irrevocable unless that is expressly stated, and that non-profit corporations, such as the one that holds the property of the Diocese, are entitled to select their own officers without having them removed at the whim of others. To rule in favor of the plaintiffs, therefore, would be to “declare Texas trust law unconstitutional” and throw into question the legal status of virtually every church property in the state.

Read it all.

What I wish to call your attention to in this post is something that had completely escaped me in previous visits to the multifarious litigation occurring in Fort Worth. One of the attorneys for Bishop Ohl and the Local Episcopal Parties, Jonathan Nelson (he argued at the initial hearings in front of Judge Chupp), who is now on his own, was earlier in a law partnership in Fort Worth called Broude, Nelson & Harrington, P.C. As a member of that law firm, he represented the Corporation of the Diocese of Fort Worth in a 1993 lawsuit against the Rev. M. L. McCauley, of the Church of the Holy Apostles, who had voted with his vestry to leave the Diocese and join the Antiochean Orthodox Church.

Bishop Iker was then the Co-Adjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, scheduled in 1994 to succeed the Rt. Rev. Clarence C. Pope, Jr., who as the diocesan was also the head of the associated Corporation. That Corporation, in turn, was established to hold legal title to the real property of all the parishes in the Diocese — including the Church of the Holy Apostles. Thus when the Rev. McCauley and his vestry claimed the right to continue to occupy the parish’s property after they had joined the Orthodox Church, the Corporation of the Diocese had to become the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed to oust them from possession. The attorney who participated in drafting the complaint and supporting affidavits for the plaintiff Corporation, and who signed his name to the pleadings, was Jonathan Nelson, of Broude, Nelson & Harrington, P.C., Fort Worth, Texas.

Now that same Jonathan Nelson is representing the minority who, with their provisional bishop, has brought suit against Bishop Iker and the other trustees of the diocesan Corporation. And he has the gall to offer, on behalf of his current clients, the very pleadings and affidavits which he mainly drafted in the 1993 lawsuit as ostensible “judicial admissions” on the part of his former clients.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church suffered a setback this week in its Texas legal battle with the breakaway Diocese of Fort Worth after a US Federal judge stayed all proceedings in the trademark against Bishop Jack Iker, pending the diocese’s motion to intervene in the case.

On Dec 20, Judge Terry R. Means in Fort Worth issued a one-page order that “in the interests of judicial economy and fairness to all parties,” the proceedings in the Episcopal Church’s trademark infringement suit against Bishop Iker would be stayed until the court ruled on the diocese’s request to intervene in the proceedings.

The decision affects only the third of the four lawsuits initiated by the national Episcopal Church and its surrogates against Bishop Iker and the majority faction of the Diocese of Fort Worth….

Read it all.

I resolved to stay away from ECUSA’s litigation troubles during this season of the nativity, but I still have to report to my readers breaking news, if it is important. And this is important news: the federal district court in Fort Worth today issued a one-page order staying all further proceedings in the trademark infringement action brought by the rump diocese of Fort Worth and its “corporation” (which does not actually exist, for reasons I explain below). The stay will remain in effect until the court resolves the pending motions by the real diocese of Fort Worth and its real corporation to intervene in the case to protect their property rights in their name and corporate insignia.

With an apparently unlimited litigation budget in Texas, the Episcopal Church (USA) and its puppet diocese of Fort Worth have tried all manner of strategies to accomplish an end run around the courts of Texas and achieve a quick victory in their dispute with Bishop Jack L. Iker and his Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth….

Read it all.

Read it all.

From here:

Citing “malicious prosecution and abuse of process” in bringing a suit which has “no factual or legal foundation,” a response filed Friday, Oct. 29, asks for sanctions on the lawyers who crafted litigation against Bishop Jack Iker on behalf of All Saints’ Episcopal Church on Crestline Road in Fort Worth.

Bishop Iker’s response denies the charges of harm to the Crestline Road congregation and notes that federal law provides “a remedy against counsel who unreasonably and vexatiously multiply the proceedings in a case.” The Oct. 15 complaint, filed in federal court, was intended to harass the Bishop and multiply the cost of litigation, the response explains. In addition, the federal suit multiplies the proceedings on an issue already under consideration in a Texas state court. The plaintiff and counsel are well aware of that suit, which covers the question of who owns certain church properties, including intellectual assets such as trademarks. That suit already represents the Crestline congregation’s interests.

Bishop Iker’s response asks the federal court to deny relief to the plaintiff church and to direct the plaintiff’s counsel to repay the Bishop’s legal costs.

A fourth lawsuit has been laid at the doorstep of Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker by the loyalist faction in the diocese, claiming he has violated the trademark of a Fort Worth congregation for his personal enrichment and to deceive the local citizenry.

On Oct 18, the diocese reported that All Saints Episcopal Church, a congregation that had affiliated with the loyalist faction, had filed a lawsuit against Bishop Iker in the US Federal Court for the Northern District of Texas alleging the misappropriation of the parish’s name and reputation for his own personal ends.

Read it all.

With three suits pending in two Texas counties, members of the minority that chose to stay in The Episcopal Church (TEC) two years ago have launched another assault on much the same grounds as the first three. Today All Saints’ Episcopal Church on Crestline Road in Fort Worth has sued Bishop Jack Iker personally, in federal court.

There can no longer be any doubt that this litigation is intended to harrass, intimidate, bankrupt, and divert the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, its Corporation, and its leadership ”“ particularly Bishop Iker ”“ from carrying out the mission of the Church.

Ironically, only this weekend Bishop Iker made several comments in jest to a gathering of clergy and laity of the Church of England in London, saying that he had “not checked the Internet today” to see whether he had been sued again.

In dispute now is the right of the Bishop to recognize a parish in the Diocese as All Saints’ Episcopal Church.

Read it all.

(Via email and with permission–KSH).

The federal lawsuit filed against me by the Schori-led group for trademark infringement is both preposterous and vindictive.

It’s preposterous because a “minority faction” ”“ in the words of the mandamus opinion from the Fort Worth Court of Appeals ”“ is trying to get a different result in federal court from the state court ruling, which clearly stated that their lead counsel do not represent the diocese, and the minority faction does not have authority to act for the diocese.

Having been heavily out-voted at our diocesan conventions in November 2007 and again in 2008, the minority group left the diocese, yet is trying a hostile takeover of the diocese through the courts. They filed a lawsuit in state court in Tarrant County in April 2009 claiming to be the diocese. In June of this year the state appellate court found that the attorneys hired by this minority faction cannot represent the diocese. The state court lawsuit includes the two trademarks, namely the name and seal of the diocese.
Having struck out at the diocesan convention and struck out at the state court level, the minority faction filed this new lawsuit in federal court over the same trademarks as in the state court case. It looks like they are shopping for a new judge. As to whether this new case will be a “game changer,” we are confident that the minority faction will not be any more successful in federal court than they have been in state court.

The lawsuit is vindictive because it is aimed personally at me, as an individual. I do not use the trademarks personally ”“ the diocese uses them! Even the minority faction acknowledges this when they say the diocese has used the marks since 1983. I have used the marks ever since I was consecrated bishop of the diocese in 1993, and I continue to hold that office. This is only one more indication of how angry the minority faction is at having lost the convention votes and left the diocese.

The question still remains: Why would they not accept our offer to transfer title of their property to them and avoid all this costly litigation?

–(The Rt. Rev.) Jack Leo Iker is Bishop of Fort Worth

My thanks to Randall Foster for these terrific pictures–read it all.

The battle over the name of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth has gone to federal court, with a trademark lawsuit filed against Bishop Jack Iker by the local group that chose to remain affiliated with the national church.

In 2008, delegates of the 19,000-member Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth voted overwhelmingly to leave the national denomination over issues including same-sex unions and the ordination of women. Several churches remained with the national denomination, and both groups now operate as the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

The lawsuit, filed this week, contends that even though the Iker-led group left the national Episcopal Church, it “has been continuously providing, advertising and marketing its religious services under the name and service mark ‘The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.'”

Read it all.

Frank Kirkpatrick, professor of religion at Trinity College, wrote in a survey article in 2008 that “there were, as of December [2007], 55 [Episcopal Church] property disputes in one state or another of resolution around the country.” (You may find a listing of those lawsuits in this post from August 2008, and see also the latest report from the American Anglican Council.) Of those fifty-five lawsuits, I estimate that ECUSA itself was a party to about half of them. Thus from the five lawsuits to which it was a party as Bishop Griswold ended his term in November 2006 (the Pawley’s Island case in South Carolina, the three Los Angeles lawsuits, and a case involving St. James Church in Elmhurst, in the Diocese of Long Island), the number increased by five times in the first full year of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s term.

Under Bishop Jefferts Schori, ECUSA did not just passively stand by as the property disputes emerged, and allow the diocese involved to carry the laboring oar. It aggressively prosecuted the cases in both California and Virginia, joined in filings in Connecticut, Georgia and New York (where it intervened as the DFMS against St. Andrew’s, in Syracuse, and filed an amicus brief in this case in New York’s highest court), became enmeshed in additional litigation in San Diego and Colorado, and threatened litigation against the dioceses of San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Quincy if they dared to withdraw from the Church. (The latter two threats were issued by the Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor on his own initiative, as discussed in this earlier post.)

There are no records in the minutes of the Executive Council during this period to show that it was ever consulted before any of these multiple filings in the name of the Church took place; as quoted in the previous post, the Presiding Bishop held the view that only she personally, and neither the Council, nor even General Convention, had any authority over litigation. Thus she simply gave her Chancellor free rein — and ECUSA’s legal bills began to mount exponentially.

Read it all (and please note it is part of a series all parts of which need to be perused).

The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth was formed in 1982 by an organizing convention of clergy and lay delegates. The diocese then voted to affiliate with the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. General Convention does not establish dioceses; rather, dioceses join the General Convention voluntarily.

Diocesan conventions in 2007 and 2008 voted by 80 percent to withdraw from the General Convention. As an unincorporated association, the diocese simply exercised its right to withdraw. Nothing in the constitution or canons of TEC says a diocese may not leave. The litigation against us is an attempt to deny this legal right.

Read it all.

(Please note that the letter to which Ms Gill is responding may be found here [starts at the bottom of the page and continues on the following page at the top]).

We see in this set of facts, as early as 2004, a recurring pattern. While professing to honor diversity — and indeed, to seek “unity in diversity” — the groups allied with Via Media have always taken root only in those dioceses led by orthodox clergy who stoutly resisted the ordination to the episcopacy of individuals in a noncelibate relationship outside of Holy Matrimony as defined (and still defined) by the Book of Common Prayer. For thus upholding the rubrics of the BCP, they have been accused of fomenting schism within ECUSA, sued, deposed and hounded from the Church.

Read it all.

The summer months have seen no break in the Episcopal Church’s legal wars, with new lawsuits, appeals and victories for both sides in the litigation over parish and diocesan property.

On July 6, the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin filed suit against the rector, vestry and parish of St Paul’s Anglican Church in Visalia, California. A congregation of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin, St. Paul’s along with a majority of the diocese withdrew from the Episcopal Church in 2007 and affiliated with the Province of the Southern Cone.

The St Paul’s litigation joins a growing list of parish lawsuits funded by the national Episcopal Church and initiated by loyalist faction in San Joaquin. Suits against lay leaders and parish corporations are pending against St Francis Anglican Church in Turlock; St Michael’s Anglican Church in Ridgecrest; St John’s Anglican Church in Porterville, James Anglican Church in Sonora; Holy Redeemer Anglican Church in Delano; and St Columba’s Anglican Church in Fresno.

Read it all.