The following is excerpted from By Common Consent. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
Last Friday, the en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in James Huntsman’s lawsuit against the church. I’ve written extensively about the suit (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), but, in case you don’t want to click back, here’s the short of it:
James Huntsman claimed that the church defrauded him out of his tithes. He says he relied on Pres. Hinckley’s statement that the church did not use tithing money to invest in Beneficial Life and to build the City Creek Center, but, it turns out, the church did. As a result of the fraud, he asked for about 15 years of tithes back.
The church moved for summary judgment, which basically means that, even if a jury were to find that everything alleged in the complaint was true, as a matter of law the plaintiff (Huntsman in this case) couldn’t win. The district court found for the church, dismissing the case.[fn1]
Huntsman appealed, and a divided three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals partially reversed. It didn’t hold that the church had committed fraud, but two of the three judges on the panel believed that, based on Huntsman’s pleading, a jury could find that it had lied about the funding of City Creek (though not Beneficial Life).
The church then asked for a rehearing en banc. In essence, that meant the parties would reargue in front of an 11-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. That rehearing happened and, based on the oral arguments, I confidently predicted that the church would win; it was only a question of what theory the en banc panel would use to get there.
I was right. The en banc panel unanimously dismissed the case. But they didn’t all agree on why.
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
