I last wrote about James Huntsman’s suit against the church about 11 months ago. (Short version: he sued for the return of some or all of his tithing, saying he’d been fraudulently induced to donate to the church.) A year ago, the Ninth Circuit made a preliminary ruling in Huntsman’s favor. A month later, the church filed for an en banc review of that ruling. (Again, short version: federal appeals courts generally appoint a 3-judge panel to hear disputes. The party that loses can request an en banc hearing, where all of the judges on the court of appeals will rehear the question.)
Federal litigation moves slowly, and so I periodically drop in to the docket to see if anything has changed. And, it turns out, something changed earlier this month: the court set a date for oral arguments. The church’s attorney and Huntsman’s attorney will each have thirty minutes to argue their side on Wednesday, Sept. 25, at 2:30 pm in San Francisco.
Will this end the case? It depends. If the court rules for Huntsman, no. This was a preliminary issue and, if Huntsman maintains his win, the case moves from the procedural to the substantive. But if the church wins, the case is done.
Also, while they’ve scheduled the hearing, there’s no guarantee that it will happen. The order scheduling the hearing explains that the en banc court could decide to “submit the case on the briefs instead.” That would mean they decided that they can decide the case based on the written submissions without any oral argument. And when do they decide to submit it on the briefs? <shrug.gif> No idea.
Also, while this takes us a step closer to the resolution of the case, again it’s worth keeping in mind that this case is moving at the speed of federal appellate litigation. Which can be SLOW. Or, sometimes, not.
But I’ll try to give you a head’s-up within a little while after something new happens!