The lawsuits between the real and breakaway Dioceses of Pittsburgh is heating up with four filings in three days. The filings reveal that the breakaway diocese is playing a legal shell game and stalling for time.
The marble in the shell game is the title “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” and Robert Duncan and his followers are hoping that by including this name in the breakaway groups title, they can get get around a 2005 court order that required them to give up all assets when they left the Episcopal Church.
Lionel Deimel writes on his blog:
The recent filings are clarifying the legal strategy of the two sides: the defendants (the breakaway diocese associated with ACNA) are stalling for time, trying to draw out the legal proceedings as long as possible, probably hoping for a settlement that does not strip them of all the assets they have removed from the control of Episcopalians. The plaintiffs (Calvary Episcopal Church and the actual Episcopal Diocese), on the other hand, claim that the stipulation is clear: events anticipated by the stipulation have occurred, and the continuing Episcopal Church diocese is immediately entitled to assets controlled by the defendants. There is, say the plaintiffs, nothing to litigate.
The shell game that the breakaway diocese is playing started when, in anticipation of leaving the Episcopal Church, Bishop Duncan and the breakaway leadership set up a separate but parallel corporation that contains the name “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” and now claims that this, and the not the diocese established by General Convention, is the entity described in the lawsuit brought by Calvary Church, Pittsburgh and in the settlement of 2005. By naming the new entity with an almost identical title, they hope that the judge will loose track of which shell is hiding the marble.
The plaintiffs are not impressed:
The Amended Motion filed by Robert Duncan and his followers is in some ways analogous to the bemoaning of a person who signs a prenuptial agreement then later breaks up their home, establishes a budget at the same time as the break-up, based upon an assumption of use and access to the same resources as had existed before the break-up and then complains that by reason of the prenuptial agreement and the break-up, he/she cannot now pay for all the things he/she used to be able to pay for. The title on the Defendants’ present Motion is, indeed, ironic. The status quo before the separation of Robert Duncan and other persons from the Episcopal Church was that assets of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh were within the control of leaders who were members of the Episcopal Church. That is the status quo, if any, that should be preserved.
And…
The current counsel for Defendants are creating a straw man by attempting to divert the Court into the ecclesiastical endeavor of divining whether a diocese can withdraw from the entity of which it is a diocese. As we have just shown, all of that is irrelevant under the Stipulation, which was entered to avoid just that prolonged inquiry with ecclesiastical “experts” and years of litigation. If required, we will litigate these issues; because we do not agree that a diocese or parish can unilaterally separate itself from the Episcopal Church. However, we should not have to do that. Our protection of the Paragraph1 Property is the one solid thing Plaintiffs obtained in the Stipulation—it should not and properly cannot be taken away. It is now time that the deal reflected in the Stipulation be lived up to. Robert Duncan can never prove that there is not an Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh which is part of the Episcopal Church. The Stipulation and Court Order specifies that is the entity to hold Paragraph 1 Property.
Deimel also links to important background documents and provides a helpful two paragraph summary of the story to date. Read the rest here.