GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS
I have good news and bad news for us to contemplate today.
The good news is that the Episcopal attorneys submitted an excellent summary of the case before Judge Edgar Dickson. It was received by email at the courthouse at 5:30 p.m., on November 25. The hearing was the next morning at 10:00 a.m. It would have been better if this had been sent a few days earlier so that the judge would have had more time to read and digest this extraordinarily well-organized and written summary. I was unaware of this paper until yesterday when an eagle-eyed lawyer friend alerted me to it on the Internet. I was surprised that the Episcopal diocese had not put this up on their website. I am sure many people would have liked to have known about it.
The summary is in the form of a letter to Judge Dickson by the lead Church lawyers, Thomas Tisdale and Mary Kostel. The letter is not very long, so instead of listing the main points, I will give the text here (click on image for enlargement):
If you prefer to read and/or print the original copy go to the court website:
---www.sccourts.org/casesearch/
---Dorchester
---Accept
---Case # 2013CP1800013
---Search
---[click on first "Case Number"]
---Actions
---[on far right at "Documents", click on second one, 11/25/2019-17:13]
In sum, the letter says the South Carolina Supreme Court has decided the property issue in this case. By majority vote, it said the Episcopal Church and it diocese own the 29 parishes in question and Camp St. Christopher. This decision was sent to the circuit court to be implemented. The federal court has ruled that the Episcopal diocese is the true heir of the historic diocese. The Church is awaiting the enactment of the SCSC decision. This is the Church's position concisely and precisely. In my opinion, it could not have been better stated.
In order to carry out the SCSC decision, the Church attorneys presented two motions/petitions to Judge Dickson last year, one to implement the decision under a special master, the other to hire an accounting firm to make a full financial accounting of the properties in question.
Since I was not present at the hearing last Tuesday, I cannot speak to the point of how much the judge used the EDSC lawyers' letter in the hearing. However, we know from the three first-hand reports, that he decided to address only one motion, that is, the Anglican petition for Clarification of Jurisdiction. In essence, this asks the court to discard the SCSC decision and decide on its own the property settlement. The judge did not take up any of the Episcopal motions/petitions.
According to one account, at the end of the hearing, Judge Dickson ordered the two sides to submit orders on ADSC's motion for Clarification of Jurisdiction, specifically "'how we got here,' the law of the case, and findings supported by court records." If the assigned task of the circuit court is to implement the SCSC decision of Aug. 2, 2017, all of Dickson's work on last Tuesday was irrelevant to the issue of the Remittitur. The Episcopal lawyers' letter of Nov. 25 had no apparent effect on the judge. In fact, Dickson's remark above showed that he questioned the validity of the SCSC decision. One report said Dickson said that he would consult the SCSC justices on clarification of their decision. That showed he did not accept the SCSC decision on its face value. All of this boils down to the discard or repudiation of the Episcopal lawyers' letter which was based on the single notion that the SCSC decision is final and clear and must be put into effect. Bottom line is that Dickson did not do that. That's the bad news.
Since I was not present at the hearing last Tuesday, I cannot speak to the point of how much the judge used the EDSC lawyers' letter in the hearing. However, we know from the three first-hand reports, that he decided to address only one motion, that is, the Anglican petition for Clarification of Jurisdiction. In essence, this asks the court to discard the SCSC decision and decide on its own the property settlement. The judge did not take up any of the Episcopal motions/petitions.
According to one account, at the end of the hearing, Judge Dickson ordered the two sides to submit orders on ADSC's motion for Clarification of Jurisdiction, specifically "'how we got here,' the law of the case, and findings supported by court records." If the assigned task of the circuit court is to implement the SCSC decision of Aug. 2, 2017, all of Dickson's work on last Tuesday was irrelevant to the issue of the Remittitur. The Episcopal lawyers' letter of Nov. 25 had no apparent effect on the judge. In fact, Dickson's remark above showed that he questioned the validity of the SCSC decision. One report said Dickson said that he would consult the SCSC justices on clarification of their decision. That showed he did not accept the SCSC decision on its face value. All of this boils down to the discard or repudiation of the Episcopal lawyers' letter which was based on the single notion that the SCSC decision is final and clear and must be put into effect. Bottom line is that Dickson did not do that. That's the bad news.
