The Alabama Supreme Court ruled on Friday to allow the Alabama-West Florida Conference (AWFC) of the United Methodist Church to continue contesting multiple property disputes with local congregations across the state.
The litigation with the AWFC involves Mt. Zion of Autauga County, Coffeeville Methodist Church, Armstrong Methodist Church, Daleville First Methodist Church, United Methodist Church Westview Heights, Ham Chapel Methodist Church, Crawford Methodist Church, Elba United Methodist Church, Highland Park Methodist Church of Dothan, Baggett Chapel United Methodist Church, Pleasant Hill Methodist Church, Trinity United Methodist Church, Gold Hill Methodist Church, Sunflower United Methodist Church, and Theodore United Methodist Church.
Associate Justice Will Sellers wrote the ruling. Justices Chris McCool, Christy Edwards,and Richard Minor concurred in the result. Acting Chief Justice Tommy Bryan and Brady Mendheim dissented. Chief Justice Sarah Stewart and Associate Justices Greg Shaw, Kelli Wise and Will Parker recused.
Sellers said in the ruling, “Fifteen local United Methodist Church congregations throughout Alabama ("the local churches") commenced civil actions against the Conference, seeking to quiet title to real property on which the local churches are located, conduct worship services, and facilitate other church activities. The Conference's board of trustees joined in the actions and, along with the Conference, filed counterclaims in each action, seeking judgments declaring that the real property at issue is owned not by the local churches but instead by the Conference's board of trustees or is held in trust by the local churches for the benefit of the board of trustees and/or the Conference. The local churches filed motions to dismiss the counterclaims, arguing that the trial court in each action lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over those counterclaims. The trial courts granted the local churches' motions to dismiss, and the Conference and its board of trustees ("the petitioners") filed the present mandamus petitions, which were consolidated for our review.”
“The trial courts in these cases dismissed only the petitioners' counter arguments against the local churches' claims, made in the form of counterclaims supporting the petitioners' alleged interests in the real property at issue. The dismissal orders were inappropriate in actions seeking to quiet title, in which the issue to be decided is the ownership of property among competing claimants,” Sellers said in the ruling. “Such actions contemplate that all parties claiming an interest in the real property in dispute will offer arguments and evidence to support their claimed superior interests in the property. Here, the trial courts' orders dismissing the petitioners' counterclaims will prevent the petitioners from proving their alleged superior claims of ownership while allowing the local churches to pursue their claims essentially unchallenged. The trial courts erred in granting the local churches' motions to dismiss the petitioners' counterclaims based on an alleged lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, we grant the petitions for the writ of mandamus and direct the trial courts to vacate the orders dismissing the petitioners' counterclaims.”
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