Lawsuit

A $190 million St Andrew apartment complex had its approvals invalidated, then partially restored on appeal. What the case says about the real legal risk in Jamaicas layered permitting process.

The Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, which financed the sale of 20 closed churches to other congregations over 15 years, announced it would leave the mortgage business after finding the loans had not always been monitored carefully.

A 15-month dispute over the Naperville Korean United Methodist Church building in Illinois ended in a settlement after a court had ordered a breakaway group that seized the property to return it.

The bankrupt Diocese of Buffalo listed 22 properties, including its headquarters, three Newman Centers and priest retirement homes, as it faces nearly 900 abuse claims and says it needs at least $100 million to settle.

Three members are suing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, saying their tithes were invested, not spent on charity, by an arm said to hold over US$100 billion whose two major outlays were an insurer bailout and a US$1.4 billion mall.

A 99-year lease of the Cows’ Garden, about a quarter of Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter, for a luxury hotel has sparked protests, a defrocked priest, and claims by the Armenian Patriarch that the deal was fraudulent.

An East Flatbush congregation of 200 was evicted without notice, then the building’s owners sued Bishop Lamor Whitehead for $3.5 million, alleging he filed a false deed claiming the property; he called the claims frivolous.

The Catholic Diocese of Rochester, bankrupt since 2019 after hundreds of abuse lawsuits, agreed to pay US$55 million into a trust for survivors of clergy sexual abuse, with further claims possible against its insurers.

Venue Church in Chattanooga defaulted on payments on its main campus, owing more than $2 million to lender Hal Properties, and the building was set for a courthouse auction months after a scandal involving its pastor.

South Carolina’s Supreme Court ordered 14 congregations that left The Episcopal Church in 2012 to hand their property, and a conference centre, back to the Episcopal diocese, while 15 others kept their buildings because they had created no trust.

First Baptist Church of LaPlace sued Church Mutual Insurance, alleging slow and inadequate payment for damage from an April 2021 windstorm and Hurricane Ida, which left its 38,000-square-foot building badly damaged.

A government health authority was sued for $2.9 million in unpaid rent after vacating a leased property. The case ran through the same courts and procedural delays as any private landlord-tenant dispute.

New Bethel Baptist Church built Foster House in Shaw to house families displaced by riots. Now DC is suing over mould and rodents, tenants call the church a slumlord, and the pastor says the city is trying to push the church out.

Australia’s Anglican Diocese of Grafton sold Byron Bay’s Secret Garden wedding venue for more than $10 million and put country churches on the market to fund abuse redress, with a lay leader calling it a desperation measure.

A Martha Brae property housing a church, a boys’ home and a mission house became the centre of a legal fight after a 20-year lease expired, the land changed hands and the American-run ministry was served with a notice to quit.