Spears Manning & Martini Secures Summary Judgment Victory in Church Property Dispute
In late 2023, the firm’s client, the New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church (NYAC), was sued by a local church that sought to leave the wider United Methodist Church (UMC) through a process called disaffiliation that would have allowed the local church to retain ownership of valuable real estate held in trust for the UMC. Because the local church failed to comply with the UMC’s process for disaffiliation its attempt was unsuccessful. When it sued to force disaffiliation, the Firm moved to dismiss that claim and prevailed on First Amendment grounds.
In this second round of litigation, we sought summary judgment for our client dismissing the remaining claims that related to this church property. The Court granted the motion in full, finding that the properties in question were expressly or impliedly held in trust for the UMC under governing deeds and The Book of Discipline—the church’s constitution. The Court reasoned that the express language in the relevant deeds, along with the UMC’s internal trust provisions, demonstrated that the real properties in dispute must remain with the UMC. This recent ruling further affirms the limited role civil courts play in adjudicating ecclesiastical matters and reinforces the application of neutral principles of law in resolving church property disputes.
Spears Manning & Martini attorneys Joseph Martini and Armel Jacobs represented NYAC in this matter.
The case is North United Methodist Church v. New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, et al., No. HHD-CV-24-6178162-S, 2025 WL 1444542 (Conn. Super. Ct. May 15, 2025).