RAYTOWN, Mo. (ABP) — On the same day it opened its 170th annual session, the Missouri Baptist Convention filed new legal action against five related agencies.
Attorneys for the convention filed a declaratory judgment action on Oct. 25 against the Baptist Home, Missouri Baptist University, Windermere Baptist Conference Center, the Missouri Baptist Foundation and the Word&Way newsjournal in an effort to void new charters the institutions filed in 2000 and 2001. Charter changes allow the five entities to elect their own trustees rather than to allow the convention to continue to do so.
The convention first filed a declaratory judgment action against the five entities on Aug. 13, 2002, in 19th Judicial District Circuit Court in Cole County. The convention's Executive Board and six convention-related churches were plaintiffs in that lawsuit.
In March, Judge Thomas Brown dismissed the action on the grounds that the Executive Board and the six churches did not have standing — the legal right — to file the action. Currently, the convention is appealing that ruling in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri in Kansas City.
The new legal action, filed in the same circuit court, names the Missouri Baptist Convention and five individual messengers, rather than churches, as plaintiffs. The five individuals were included as plaintiffs because each has served as a messenger to annual meetings since 1999 and each has been or is an convention-elected trustee for one of the five institutions.
According to court documents, the convention asks the court to declare that the convention and the five individuals have standing to bring the action. The convention also asks the court to declare that the convention's right to elect trustees, that current convention-elected trustees are each agency's only authorized trustees, and that the convention has the right to approve amendments to the institutions' charters.
The Missouri Baptist Convention seeks to have the court declare the amendments to each charter as unlawful and void and the authorized charters as legally enforceable by the convention.
The convention seeks the return of some assets from the entities and a monetary award to cover its court costs and attorneys' fees.
In the court documents, the MBC charges conspiracy among the five entity heads, former MBC executive director Jim Hill, and others.
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— Vicki Brown is a news writer for Word & Way.