KANSAS CITY, Mo. (ABP) — A state appeals court ruling means the Missouri Baptist Convention will be able to continue pursuing its lawsuit against five agencies that removed themselves from MBC control.
In a preliminary opinion issued May 31, the Kansas City-based Missouri Appeals Court for the Western District reversed Cole County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Brown's March 2004 decision to dismiss the MBC's legal action against The Baptist Home, Missouri Baptist University, Missouri Baptist Foundation, Windermere Baptist Conference Center and the Word & Way newspaper.
Brown had ruled that the convention's Executive Board and a group of affiliated churches did not have the legal right to file the lawsuit because the MBC documents define the group's “members” as individual messengers to convention meetings rather than churches. The convention is an unincorporated association under Missouri law, and thus its members must be the ones to bring lawsuits on its behalf.
When attorneys for the convention asked permission to amend their lawsuit with individual messengers as plaintiffs, Brown denied their request.
In its May 31 opinion, the appellate court said Brown's decision was improper. It also said the MBC's Executive Board has the legal right to sue as a representative of the convention because it is composed of members and members elect the board's officers. However, Brown was correct in dismissing the board from the suit as a freestanding corporate entity, the appeals judges noted.
The appeals panel also upheld Brown's determination that the six churches — Springhill Baptist Church, Springfield; Oakwood Baptist Church, Kansas City; Concord Baptist Church, Jefferson City; and First Baptist churches of Branson, Bethany and Arnold — do not have standing to sue.
The appellate court said Brown correctly determined that messengers, not churches, are members of the convention. “The trial court correctly analyzed the question of membership in accordance with the constitution and bylaws of the convention,” the opinion noted.
The five agencies can request a rehearing before the appellate court or ask the court to transfer the case to the Missouri Supreme Court. If the appellate court turns down the request, the entities can ask the Supreme Court directly to consider the case. Deadline to request the rehearing is June 15.
If the entities choose not to pursue the option or the courts turn them down, the case will return to Brown's courtroom.
Currently, a second suit with MBC messengers as plaintiffs, filed in October, is pending before Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan. If the first case is returned to Cole County, the two lawsuits likely would be combined. “The tradition is to combine the youngest case with the oldest,” Missouri Baptist Foundation attorney Larry Tucker said.
MBC attorneys argued that the convention often interprets its governing documents to mean that churches are members. MBC attorneys compared the relationship to representative government — churches send messengers to the convention as representatives or agents.
But the appellate opinion noted that under Missouri law, the courts must consider only the clear text of the contract — in this case, the convention's constitution and bylaws — unless the contract is ambiguous. The court determined the MBC governing documents clearly refer to messengers as members.
“While the contract doesn't speak directly to the issue of who 'members' are…it sufficiently defines the character of the organization to allow an interpretation of this issue,” the court said. “The aggregate of the convention is not individual churches, defined by the constitution as wholly autonomous, but is the messengers in attendance at the annual meetings.”
“The opinion confirms what we argued — that churches are not members,” Tucker said.
Nonetheless, he noted, “We can't tell [which messengers] should represent the convention based on the opinion,” he said.
However, the MBC's lead attorney in the case also said the appeals panel's decision was good news. “This opinion provides good cause for Missouri Baptists to be encouraged,” Michael Whitehead said, according to the Southern Baptist Convention's news outlet. “This opinion is a giant step toward restoring these ministries to the Missouri Baptist Convention family, sooner rather than later.”
Amidst a struggle between moderates and conservativess over control of the MBC in 2000 and 2001, the five institutions changed their charters to allow each entity to elect its own trustees. In the past, the convention had elected board members.
The MBC then voted to defund the agencies. Later, a majority of MBC messengers voted to file a lawsuit, asking the courts to overturn the agencies' revised charters — thus re-claiming the convention's ability to name the agencies' trustees.
The case is Executive Board of the Missouri Baptist Convention vs. Blunt, No. WD64069.
— With additional reporting by Robert Marus
(Editor's note: Vicki Brown is a news writer for Word & Way, one of the agencies involved in the lawsuit.)