Mad Magazine has for many years published a comic strip entitled “Spy v. Spy.” It has since spread to YouTube videos and a video game. While that comic strip may have been inspired in 1961 by the Cold War, other famous small conflicts included the Hatfields and McCoys, which also spawned a US Supreme Court case in the 19th century and various dramatic interpretations. Like all such feuds, the factual history of any feud is winding and complex and not nearly as funny as “Spy v. Spy.” Unraveling the motives behind the ongoing feud is usually impossible.

In Fidelity National Title Insurance Company v New Haven Financial, Inc., Slip Op. (Cal. App. 2018), the death of the founding pastor in 2005 resulted in a power struggle between two rivals for the pastorate of the church. Several lawsuits resulted as each side in turn sought judicial relief against the other. Meanwhile, the denominational authority refused to accept the election of first one of the rivals and then the other. Further, one of the courts to hear one of the cases held the denominational authority was the only authority that could oversee an election and needed to do so because the church’s membership records were possibly unreliable. For no reason that was reported in the opinion, the denomination did not do so and the feuding continued in court. Eventually, one rival won a final judgment in a prior case. During the litigation, the rival that was later defeated in court, representing himself as pastor of the church, obtained a loan for $150,000 using church property as collateral. The foreclosure action was defeated by the winning rival and the title company had to pay the claim. The title company sought reparations from the rival, by then the losing rival, that took out the loan. The title company also sued the family of the defeated rival because the money was allegedly distributed to family members. The defeated rival filed a cross claim against the winning rival. The trial court dismissed the cross claim holding the prior ruling against the defeated rival barred further litigation of the issue by not only the defeated rival, but “parties in privity,” which included the family member that appealed in this case.

While church splits are not common enough to cause church members to even envision the possibility, church leaders should. Church and denominational documents should envision succession plans, election procedures and oversight, and membership roles should actually be kept by churches. Denominations should inspect membership lists, or require their submission at reasonable intervals, or at least require at reasonable intervals a certification in writing from the church that there is an actual membership list maintained. Denominations and church leaders may have to do more than pray for peace, they may have to impose it in extreme situations.

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