## Facts

- St. James Parish, founded in the 1940s and incorporated in 1949 as a nonprofit religious corporation, operated as a parish within a hierarchical denomination and agreed to be governed by denominational rules.
- The parish acquired Newport Beach real property; record title to the property remained in the name of the local parish corporation.
- The national church adopted a canon declaring that parish property is held in trust for the national church and the diocese.
- In 2004, amid theological disputes, St. James’s leadership and a majority of members voted to disaffiliate from the national church and the diocese and affiliate with another Anglican body.
- The diocese, the national church, and a parishioner sought declaratory and related relief establishing that the departing faction could not retain church property after disaffiliation.
- The local parish leadership argued that record title controlled and that no enforceable trust existed in favor of the national church or diocese.

## Issues

1. Whether claims seeking control of church property after a congregation’s disaffiliation “arise from” protected activity and are subject to dismissal under California’s anti-SLAPP statute (Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16).
2. What First Amendment-compliant method California courts should use to decide church property disputes involving a hierarchical church: deference to ecclesiastical authority, neutral principles of law, or a combination.
3. Under the governing documents and California law, whether the local parish corporation or the national church and diocese own or control the disputed property.

## Decision

- The court held the action was not subject to an anti-SLAPP motion because the gravamen was a property dispute, even if expressive and associational conduct formed the background.
- The court adopted a combined approach: courts must avoid deciding doctrine and must defer on doctrinal and polity questions, but may resolve property questions using neutral principles of law where possible.
- Applying neutral principles, the court concluded the property was held in trust for the national church and diocese and could not be taken by the disaffiliating parish.
- The court affirmed the denial of the anti-SLAPP motion, reversed the Court of Appeal on the property ownership issue, and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its conclusions.

## Legal Principles

- Courts may adjudicate church property disputes if they can do so without resolving questions of religious doctrine; doctrinal disputes require deference to the appropriate church authority.
- California permits a neutral-principles analysis that considers deeds, articles of incorporation, denominational constitutions and canons, and relevant statutes governing religious corporations.
- Record title in a local religious corporation is not dispositive where a legally cognizable trust burden exists.
- Under Corporations Code section 9142 and related principles, a denominational rule may establish a trust interest in local parish property when the local entity has affiliated on terms that bind it to the denomination’s governing documents.
- A local congregation’s right to control and use parish property may be conditioned on continued affiliation with the hierarchical church; disaffiliation does not carry an entitlement to retain property held subject to a denominational trust.

## Conclusion

California courts may decide hierarchical-church property disputes through neutral principles while deferring on doctrinal matters, and under California religious-corporation law a parish that disaffiliates cannot retain property held in trust for the national church and diocese; such claims are not subject to anti-SLAPP dismissal when the dispute is fundamentally about property rights.


Episcopal Church Cases, 45 Cal. 4th 467, 198 P.3d 66, 87 Cal. Rptr. 3d 275 (Cal. 2009)