DioFW: Brief Asks Court to Establish Neutral Principles in Texas
In a 49-page brief filed today with the Texas State Supreme Court, attorneys for the Diocese, Corporation, and congregations asked the Court to uphold several previous Appellate Court decisions and establish Neutral Principles as the method for resolving church property disputes in the state.
Neutral Principles, accepted in 36 states and approved by the U.S. Supreme Court since 1979, is a method of settling questions of church property ownership using the same rules that govern ownership of other types of private property, and it removes courts from wading into doctrinal disputes.
The brief also asked the Court to reverse the Fort Worth trial court’s February 2011 decision in favor of the Episcopal parties’ claims to diocesan property, and instead to uphold well-established state codes on trust instruments and non-profit corporations. The brief asks the Court to grant the Diocese’s summary judgment claims and prevent a hostile takeover of diocesan property by outside parties.
Comments
Facebook comments are closed.
2 comments
Couldn’t open link to brief at bottom of Diocesan article???
[1] Posted by Doubting Thomas on 2-9-2012 at 05:21 PM · [top]
Thomas,
It’s working for me, but then, I posted it. The document is long – over 70 pages – so it may take some time to download. It is a pretty standard PDF, with some security. I’d recommend using Chrome, Safari, or Firefox as your browser. If you still have a problem, send me a message, and we’ll work it out! The document is definitely worth the read. Thanks for your interest.
[2] Posted by Suzanne Gill on 2-9-2012 at 06:37 PM · [top]
Registered members are welcome to leave comments. Log in here, or register here.
Comment Policy: We pride ourselves on having some of the most open, honest debate anywhere. However, we do have a few rules that we enforce strictly. They are: No over-the-top profanity, no racial or ethnic slurs, and no threats real or implied of physical violence. Please see this post for more. Although we rarely do so, we reserve the right to remove or edit comments, as well as suspend users' accounts, solely at the discretion of site administrators. Since we try to err on the side of open debate, you may sometimes see comments which you believe strain the boundaries of our rules. Comments are the opinions of visitors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Stand Firm site administrators or Gri5th Media, LLC.