All Saints Parish Waccamaw v. Protestant Episcopal Church in Diocese

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that the Dennis Canon does not create an express trust pursuant to South Carolina property law
• explaining that under the neutral principles of law approach, courts may apply property, corporate, and other forms of law to church disputes
• finding that if a question of religious law or doctrine is masquerading as a dispute over property or corporate control, the court must defer to the ecclesiastical body
• rejecting arguments that church constitution and canons created implied trust interest and resolving dispute on basis of language in deed and state law on trusts
• declaring that when resolving church dispute cases, South Carolina courts are to apply the neutral principles of law approach as approved by the Supreme Court of the United States in Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 61 L.Ed.2d 775 (1979)
• applying neutral principles of law in disputes arising between a congregation and its denomination over title to church property and between the congregation’s members over corporate control

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).