Smith v. Swormstedt

How courts have described this case

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

• opining that “a division of [a] church organization” could be analyzed solely under the principles of contract law
• ignoring Rule 48 and stating that “the decree binds all of [the class members] the same as if all were before the court”
• allowing representative suit on behalf of more than 1,500 Methodist preachers
• failing to reference and contradicting the then- governing Equity Rule 48
• indicating, in a pre-Rules equitable suit brought by members and preachers of one branch of a church against those in the other branch, that joinder of all members would be impracticable due to the large and changing membership of the churches
• 6 plaintiffs representing 1500 preachers of the southern sector of the Methodist Episcopal Church against three defendants representing 3800 ministers of the northern sector, after the church split over the slavery issue

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).