There are two recent lawsuits filed against the LDS church that are worth taking a look at. Both lawsuits demand that the church return donations to the donor (or the donor’s heirs).
And both face a major impediment: as a general rule, if you make a charitable donation, you can’t get that donation back. And that’s the case even if the you have a falling out with the charitable organization. In fact, that’s the case even if the charitable organization uses your gift in a way that you, personally, find offensive. (In that case, you can certainly stop making charitable donations in the future, of course. But you don’t get your prior donations back.)
There are exceptions to this general rule, of course. And the plaintiffs in the two cases try to get around the rule by using two different exceptions.
Huntsman v. Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
James Huntsman of the well-known Huntsman family, filed a suit (complaint available here) in March asserting that the church had fraudulently induced him to pay tithing and demanding that the church return the tithing that he had paid. One California court (James lives in and paid tithing in California, so California law applies) explained that it is first year contract law that charitable donations cannot be reclaimed unless there’s fraud, violation of a confidential relationship or breach of trust.[fn1]
So James claims he was fraudulently induced to pay his tithing. Specifically, he claims that the church’s statements that it didn’t use tithing money to build City Creek mall was a false statement that he relied on in making his tithing payments.
Now in asserting fraud, James faces a significant hurdle: courts have recognized that “[f]raud is a serious charge, easy to allege and hard to prove.” As a result, federal court requires a heightened pleading standard when a plaintiff asserts fraud.
And what do courts mean by a “heightened pleading standard”? It means it’s not enough to just say in your first filing that the defendant did something wrong and prove it later. In the initial filing, you have to “plead fraud with particularity.” Broadly speaking, that means your very first filing has to lay out specifically the “who, what, when, where and how” of the fraud.
The church’s defense of the suit basically rests on three pillars. In no particular order, the church says that it didn’t lie (which would mean there’s not fraud), the suit is constitutionally impermissible under the First Amendment, and that James didn’t plead fraud with particularity.
The church filed a motion for summary judgment (which basically asks the court to rule on the case without going to trial). This case had a hearing on the motion scheduled for Monday. The judge has cancelled the hearing, though, and says he’ll make a ruling based on the submitted documents.
The ruling could do one of two things: it could grant the church’s motion for summary judgment, which would mean that the case (in its current form at least) is over and the church wins. Or it could deny the motion, which means the case would proceed to trial.
I suspect that the court will grant the motion for summary judgment based on deficiencies in the pleading of fraud. That is, I don’t think James pleaded fraud with the requisite particularity. The judge could, of course, rule on the factual and constitutional matters too, but judges generally like to take care of cases on the narrowest grounds possible. And I suspect that fraud is the narrowest ground possible. (I could clearly be wrong, of course, and we’ll all have to keep an eye on what happens next.)
Teichert v. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
In June, Tim Teichert filed a suit against the church. If his name sounds familiar, it’s because it is—Tim is the grandson of Minerva Teichert. Minerva died intestate (meaning without a will) in 1976. Her husband Herman died intestate in 1982. And Tim was appointed the administrator of his Herman’s estate.
In 1955, Minerva gave four paintings to the Cokeville, Wyoming ward. The paintings were to be displayed at the Cokeville building.
In 2014, the church moved one of the four paintings. In 2020, it moved the other four paintings.
Now, as I said earlier, generally a donor can’t get a donation back. But the suit alleges that these were conditional donations: Minerva and the bishop of the Cokeville ward at the time (Herman K. Teichert, her son) agreed that if the paintings were moved, ownership would revert back to Minerva or, if she had died, her heirs.
The paintings were moved. So will the estate get them back? The answer, I believe, depends on the answers to two questions. The first is, was there an agreement?
But that’s going to be a hard question to answer. The complaint says that Minerva never entered into a written agreement with the church. And, while a contract doesn’t have to be written to be enforceable, a written contract really helps as an evidentiary matter. Absent the written contract, Tim is going to have to present other evidence both that the contract existed and what the terms of the contract were. (And, since he’s the one asserting that there was a conditional contractual gift, the burden will be on Tim to show that there was an agreement and what that agreement said.)
It becomes harder because the two alleged parties to the contract—Minerva and her son Herman—have both died.
Perhaps Tim has other evidence of a contract. And at this stage of the litigation he doesn’t need to show it. But without evidence of a contract, the suit is dead.
That’s a factual impediment. But I suspect there’s also a legal impediment: was Herman an agent of the church in making this agreement.
Oh, sorry: “agent” is a legal term of art. It basically means, did Herman have the right to bind the church to a contract? It’s not obvious that he did. Today, I can imagine at most rare occasions where bishops are agents of the church and can enter into a contract that binds the church. In 1955, when the church was smaller and more centralized in the Mormon Corridor, its possible that bishops had a tighter relationship with the institutional church and that they did act as agents. But it’s possible that they didn’t.
And basically, if Herman didn’t have the legal authority to enter into a contract that bound the church, then even if he did enter into a contract with his mother, that contract would not be binding on the church.
Concluding Thoughts
Both of these cases are, I suspect, uphill battles for the plaintiffs. The rule that you can’t get your charitable donation back is a pretty ironclad rule. The exceptions are limited and narrow and the burden falls on the donor to prove that their case falls within one of the exceptions.
Still, it will be interesting to watch how these cases play out and resolve.
Irrelevant Musical Adendum
I really really wanted to title this post “I Want [It] Back” and use some sort of extended metaphor/riff on the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” to introduce it. That ended up being far too attenuated to make any sense at all, but nonetheless if you want to see an awesome 1970s music video, you should really watch them perform here.
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[fn1] Word of God Fellowship, Inc. v. Coast Cmty. Coll. Dist., No. G033901, 2005 WL 1491297 (Cal. Ct. App. June 23, 2005), vacated, No. G033901, 2006 WL 1454737 (Cal. Ct. App. May 25, 2006).