It is Mr. [Simon] Sarmiento who misled the members of General Synod, not Ms. Ashworth. Notice first of all that he evaded Ms. Ashworth’s point. She asserted that the Church’s lawsuits named individual vestry members as defendants, and he responded that such defendants are “generally covered” by insurance. (That has not been my experience in any church litigation with which I have been associated; only the largest Episcopal parishes can afford to budget for such insurance.) He does not deny that individual vestry members are named, but claims that no damages are sought against them.
This is, as I say, highly misleading. Any individual named in a lawsuit can be held liable for costs if he or she ends up losing; such costs in protracted cases (such as the Dennis Canon ones usually are) can run into the many thousands of dollars. And for an example where ECUSA sought $500,000 plus additional damages from a church’s law firm, one needs look no further than this earlier post. (The pseudo-diocese of San Joaquin has carried on the tradition by naming the individual vestry members and rector of St. John’s Anglican parish in Turlock as defendants in its latest lawsuit. The plaintiff Bishop Lamb made a point of telling his flock that it “is not a suit against any individuals.” But the story about the suit linked earlier has a copy of the complaint which you may download, and see for yourself that the defendants named [scroll down to page 5] include the rector and nine vestry members, who are sued “as individuals”. Those individuals still need to pay an attorney to defend them [no insurance is applicable], and there is always, as I say, individual liability for court costs if they lose [see paragraph H. of the prayer for relief on page 24 of the complaint (page 28 of the document)].)
But now we have a different kind of response to ECUSA’s bullying tactics — one might even say that ECUSA has sued one vestry member too many. For one such vestry member whom the Church named in a lawsuit to recover a parish’s property in San Angelo, Texas is also an attorney: his name is Mark Brown. And in his capacity as an attorney, Mark Brown has filed an amicus brief in the writ proceeding currently pending before the Court of Appeals in Fort Worth.
It is a brilliant brief, and may do far more damage to ECUSA’s claims in that case than ECUSA has been able to do to Mr. Brown.
Read it carefully and make sure to download and read the whole document by Mark Brown also.
The suit brought by Bishop Lamb is against St. Francis’ Anglican parish in Turlock, its vestry and its rector. The original post (referring to St. John’s, quoted here) has been corrected. Mark Brown’s brief has also been posted on the Diocese of Fort Worth’s website, and may be downloaded [url=http://www.fwepiscopal.org/downloads/brownamicusbrief.pdf]from this link[/url].
This is just the beginning.