Today Senior Judge C. Weston Houck of the Federal District Court in the District of South Carolina entered an order dismissing “without prejudice” the federal trademark infringement lawsuit filed in that court by Provisional Bishop vonRosenberg of the “Episcopal Church in South Carolina” against Bishop Mark Lawrence of the independent Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. The dismissal “without prejudice” means that the Court declined to rule on any of the merits of Bishop vonRosenberg’s claims, so as not to interfere with the State Court proceeding involving those same issues which is currently before Judge Diane Goodstein in the Court of Common Pleas for the First Judicial Circuit in Dorchester County, South Carolina (see the footnote on page 22 of the Order).
Should the State court proceedings not fully and finally resolve all of the trademark issues between Bishop vonRosenberg and Bishop Lawrence (and there is no reason to conceive why they should not so resolve them), then the dismissal without prejudice leaves Bishop vonRosenberg theoretically free to refile his Lanham Act (federal trademark) claims in the federal district court. However, if the State court proceedings result in a litigated final judgment, then that judgment would operate to bar any further such filings by Bishop von Rosenberg in any court.
Read it all (and please follow the link to the text of the actual order).