This is straight out of the litigation playbook described above, is it not? It represents steps 4 and 6 outlined earlier. But now we get to the crux of the matter. It is not sufficient to show that the persons who currently claim to be the “Trustees of The Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth” hired you as their attorneys; in order to satisfy Rule 12, you must also show that those persons are who they claim to be, and indeed have the required authority to authorize you, as an attorney, to file suit in an entity’s name. Stated another way: you cannot respond to a Rule 12 motion by saying “Joe Doakes at XYZ Corp. authorized me to bring suit for it, and he’s the Vice President for Legal Affairs.” You have to show that there actually is a Joe Doakes, and he has to prove that the corporation (through its Board of Directors, or President) gave him the authority to hire attorneys to institute litigation in the corporation’s name.
Thus in order to have the requisite authority, the persons claiming to be the “Trustees of The Corporation of The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth” would have to show that they were duly appointed to that office in accordance with The Corporation’s Articles and bylaws. And here they encounter an obstacle. For the Diocesan Canons (Canon 17) provide for one of the Board’s Five Trustees (the Bishop is an ex officio Trustee and Chairman) to be elected at each Annual Convention to a staggered five-year term. When a Trustee does not serve out his term, and a vacancy occurs, the bylaws specify that the remaining Trustees have authority to appoint an interim Trustee to serve until the next Annual Convention, as I noted in this previous post.
Although there pleadings were not striken – they will likely ammend their Original Petition to redefine or recharacterize the plaintiff and/or bring in new players as plaintiffs – their MSJ is more or less a moot point as the attorneys no longer can represent the currently styled Plaintiff’s who filed the motion. A Motion for Summary Judgment is only winable if there are no “material issues of fact”. Whether or not there is really a plaintiff is now a “fact question”. Not a good start for the evil empire.
Actually chips
Read the ruling: http://www.episcopaldiocesefortworth.org/misc pdfs/order 09.16.09.pdf
As you can see, the Judge added a note (in bold) which will appear in the published ruling:
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and The Corporation of The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth that are associated with Bishop Iker
So, what +Iker actually acheived was to make sure that TECs attorneys do not represent him. This was never in question. The actual ruling says nothing of what +Iker says it says.
For information on how one parish moved out of TEC see.
http://www.churchoftheword.net/tec_to_nigeria.html
Ok Brian. The Corporation associated with +Iker is filed with the Texas Secretary of State – it has officers and Directors and a date of incorporation. Has the rump Diocese incorporated or created a new corporation.
Although it does not format well I have copied the information at the Texas Secretary of States Website for the Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. It has a filing number and was originally filed on Feb 28, 1983. It registered agent is Jack Iker. It also has the names of its trustees which I have pasted at the bottom. Is there another Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth? Texas is usually pretty good at allowing only one company to use the same name at a time.
Filing Number: 64493201 Entity Type: Domestic Nonprofit Corporation
Original Date of Filing: February 28, 1983 Entity Status: In existence
Formation Date: N/A Non-Profit Type: N/A
Tax ID: 17518551332 FEIN:
Duration: Perpetual
Name: CORPORATION OF THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF FORT WORTH
Address: 2900 ALEMEDA ST
FORT WORTH, TX 761085960 USA
REGISTERED AGENT FILING HISTORY NAMES MANAGEMENT ASSUMED NAMES ASSOCIATED ENTITIES
Name Address
Jack L. Iker 2900 Alemeda Street
Fort Worth, TX 76108 USA
April 21, 2009 Franklin Salazar Trustee 1505 Wright Street
Arlington, TX 76012 USA
April 21, 2009 Rod Barber Trustee 7924 Vista Ridge North
Fort Worth, TX 76132 USA
April 21, 2009 Chad Bates Trustee 1114 Monteau Court
Arlington, TX 76012 USA
April 21, 2009 Walter Virden Trustee 1803 Bois de arc Drive
Arlington, TX 76013 USA
April 21, 2009 Jo Ann Patton Trustee 3309 Marquette Court
Fort Worth, TX 76109 USA
Jack L lker Trustee 2900 Alemeda Street
Fort Worth, TX 76108 USA
——————————————————————————–
Instructions:
To place an order for additional information about a filing press the ‘Order’ button.
interesting chips, thanks. i would love to see them win one and pray for them often.