JUDGE DICKSON TO DENY 
TECSC'S MOTION FOR DISMISSAL 

OF BETTERMENTS SUIT

28 August, 1:50 p.m.     The breakaway diocese, the Diocese of South Carolina, announced on their website today that Judge Dickson is set to deny the motion of the Episcopal Church diocese, the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, for dismissal of the Betterments suit. In this, DSC is suing TECSC for reimbursement of improvements made on the properties in question. Find the DSC announcement here . The Episcopal Church diocese also posted a news release today. Find it here .

First of all, the timing of this is curious considering that mediation is to begin in one week. Secondly, this reminds us that everything Dickson has done with the six motions before him has been in the interest of the breakaway diocese. He has been dragging all of this out for a year and a half. Just last month, he had the two sides agree to the independence of the seven parishes listed in the state supreme court decision as outside the Dennis Canon while ignoring the other two majority decisions of the SCSC decision, both of which favor TECSC. Dickson has not made the first ruling in favor of TEC.

If Dickson is in fact allowing the Betterments suit to proceed, this is good news and bad news for both sides. For the breakaway side, the bad news is that they are surrendering claim to the 29 parishes in question. The good news is they stand to win award of millions of dollars from the Episcopal Church side for the "improvements." How much is up for question. In the original Betterments suit, only one parish listed a dollar amount for "improvements." St. Luke's of Hilton Head listed $7 million. There are 28 other parishes. One can only guess at the total figure.

In reverse, the good news for the Church side is that the breakaways are accepting the fact that the SCSC granted the 29 parishes to the Episcopal Church. The bad news is that the Church may be hit with a whopping bill for "improvements." If I were the lawyer for the Church side, I would demand rent payment from each of the 29 parishes. Do the math. Even a conservative rent of $2K/mo. for seven years for 29 parishes would likely offset some of the "improvements."

One should recall that TECSC has a motion in before Dickson for a professional auditing firm to make a full audit of each of the 29 parishes. I should think this would be absolutely imperative to determine what, if any, improvements were made to the 29 properties since the moment of the schism, October 15, 2012.