Both Sides Debate Significance of Fort Worth Ruling

From The Living Church:

Posted on: September 17, 2009

In a lawsuit regarding diocesan autonomy and multiple properties, a district judge ruled Wednesday that two attorneys are “barred from appearing in this suit as attorneys for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth that is associated with Bishop Iker.”

Statements from both sides debated the significance of that ruling and of remarks made from the bench by Judge John Chupp of the 141st District Court of Tarrant County.

“The judge also ruled that neither the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church nor the Constitution and Canons of this diocese prohibit withdrawal from TEC and realignment under another province,” said a statement from the diocese, led by the Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker. In November 2008, the former Episcopal diocese voted to amend its bylaws to leave The Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone on a temporary and emergency basis.

“Further, he found that the diocese had done so at its November 2008 annual convention, saying that ‘they [the members] took the diocese with them.’ The action of the November convention was not, he said, ultra vires and void, as the suit’s plaintiffs have argued. He declared, too, that the diocese had taken its property with it in realignment. He said he did not consider any court ruling concerning a realigning parish to be applicable in the present case, and he said that he considered it ‘self-serving on [the part of TEC] to say that [Bishop Iker] abandoned his job.’”

A statement from the leaders of the reorganized, TEC-loyal Diocese of Fort Worth downplayed the significance of Judge Chupp’s ruling and remarks, saying he “ruled that attorney Jon Nelson and Chancellor Kathleen Wells are not authorized to represent the diocese or the corporation that are associated with Jack L. Iker. These attorneys have never claimed to do so. The judge denied the motion by Bishop Iker’s attorneys to remove the diocese and the corporation from the lawsuit filed April 14, 2009.

“While the judge did make some off hand remarks in court and asked many questions, he made no other rulings.”

The dispute about which attorneys represent the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth goes to the heart of the case. Both the diocese led by Bishop Iker and a reorganized diocese led by the Rt. Rev. Ted Gulick, Bishop of Kentucky and a provisional bishop in Fort Worth, lay claim to being the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth that was founded in January 1983.

A first amended original petition filed by Mr. Nelson and Ms. Wells depicted Bishop Iker’s diocese as phony.

“Defendant The Anglican Province of the Southern Cone's ‘Diocese of Fort Worth’ (hereinafter the ‘Southern Cone Diocese’) is an entity of unknown form which has no relation to the plaintiffs Church or Diocese and purports to be affiliated with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone,” the petition said. “The Southern Cone Diocese holds itself out and is doing business as ‘the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.’ The Southern Cone Diocese can be served with citation by serving its purported bishop, Jack Leo Iker.”

Bishop Iker’s diocese argued that it had the freedom to separate itself from the Episcopal Church while continuing to use the historical name of the diocese.

“Defendants also consider it significant that plaintiffs will not be able to offer any admissible proof of any constitutional provision or canon of the Episcopal Church that states in understandable language that once a diocese is accepted into a relationship with the Episcopal Church the diocese can never withdraw,” the diocese said. “In fact, there is no reasonable interpretation of any language in the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church that would support such an interpretation.”

“The court asked if plaintiffs were entitled to keep defendants from using the word ‘Episcopal’ in their names. The word ‘Episcopal’ is a descriptive word like Baptist or Lutheran. The Episcopal Church took its name from the Church in Scotland. Other Anglican provinces using the word Episcopal in their names are Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil, the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East, the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, L'Eglise Episcopal au Rwanda, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the Episcopal Church of the Sudan. There are churches which are not provinces that use this name, such as Iglesia Episcopal de Cuba and the Reformed Episcopal Church of Spain. Accordingly, the Episcopal Church has no legal basis for objecting to defendants using the word ‘Episcopal’ in their names.”

On Oct. 15, Judge Chupp will hear the plaintiffs’ argument for partial summary judgment