Everyone Will Call This a Church Autonomy Win. Read the Opinion. The Tenth Circuit Never Reached the Question.
A unanimous Tenth Circuit panel ended the last tithing class action on Monday. It did it on the calendar, not the First Amendment, and the difference matters to your church.
Strip the case to its principle and it is not complicated. Nine people gave money to a church over the course of twenty five years. They later came to believe the money went somewhere other than where they were told. They sued.
On Monday a three judge panel of the Tenth Circuit told them they had waited too long.
That is the entire holding. Not that the church was honest. Not that a court has no business auditing a collection plate. Just that the clock had run, and it had run for a reason that should make every churchgoer in America sit up. The panel held that these plaintiffs were obliged to know something they say they did not know, because it had been in the news.
The organizations celebrating this ruling are calling it a win for church autonomy. Ten of them, including the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventists, filed a brief saying so. They are entitled to be pleased with the result. They should read the opinion before they rest anything on it.
