The Episcopal Diocese of Forth Worth responds to the news, reported at the Lead yesterday, that the Supreme Court had sent the case back to state court.
Supreme Court Declines to Review Episcopal Diocese Case at This Time
On November 3, 2014, the United States Supreme Court denied the petition for writ of certiorari filed by the Episcopal Parties on June 19, 2014. The case will thus proceed to retrial on remand in the 141st District Court of Tarrant County, Texas, in Fort Worth, with the Honorable John P. Chupp presiding. The 141st District Court likely will hear summary judgment motions in early 2015, with the losing parties likely to appeal that decision to the state appellate courts and then back to the U.S. Supreme Court on constitutional issues.
Because the case was remanded in August 2013 by the Texas Supreme Court for further proceedings, that decision was “interlocutory” or non-final, which the U.S. Supreme Court rarely accepts for review. Thus, while the Episcopal Parties are disappointed not to have the faster resolution the U.S. Supreme Court could have offered, they look forward to filing their summary judgment papers and showing why the breakaway faction’s decades of commitments are enforceable under basic neutral principles of Texas law.
Denial of review of an interlocutory order does not set precedent on the issues raised, and the Episcopal Parties may still raise the legal issues from the interlocutory petition in the event the case is later appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Read more here.