Lead Opinion
| T This appeal is yet another chapter in the internal struggle for church leadership of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Incorporated, a/k/a Mount Zion Missionary-Baptist Church, located in Alexandria, Louisiana.
DISCUSSION OF THE RECORD
The issues presented in this appeal represent only a small part of the litigation that currently engulfs the church, and this is not the only appeal pending before this court at this time. Contemporaneous with this opinion, this court is issuing another opinion involving other issues related to the church’s internal governance struggle, and reference is made to that opinion for some of the additional factual background. See Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church
On March 2, 2011, the trial court executed a written judgment which provided in part that the church’s preliminary injunction was granted and that Mr. Jones was discharged as pastor of the church; that the purported election of a new Board of Trustees on February 13, 2011, was nullified and set aside; and that Mr. Jones and his agents or representatives were 12prohibited and enjoined from entering or occupying any of the property of the church “as pastor pending any further action in accordance with the Church bylaws and Louisiana law.”
Id. at 677.
Apparently this latter part of the judgment led to an attempt by the church’s trustees to limit certain members’ participation in church activities, because on March 21, 2011, the plaintiffs filed a petition against the church seeking relief on a number of levels. Of significance to this litigation was the plaintiffs’ request for the appointment of a special master to oversee the calling of a church meeting to elect a new Board of Trustees, and their request for injunctive relief prohibiting the current Board of Trustees from banning them from the church premises. This pleading was assigned to a different division than that to which the prior litigation had been assigned, and on the day following the filing by the plaintiffs, the judge of the new division granted a temporary restraining order ordering the church, through its Board of Trustees, to:
a. Refrain from preventing Petitioners’ access to the Church,
b. Refrain from conducting any business or special meetings prior to [the trial] court’s ruling;
c. Refrain from manipulating/changing the composition of the current board, until such time that [the trial] court has ruled on this matter.
On April 4, 2011, the trial court held a hearing on the plaintiffs’ petition and, after completion of the evidence, granted them part of the relief they requested.
The April 18, 2011 judgment, which arose from the April 4, 2011 hearing, provided in pertinent part that the church was prohibited from preventing the plaintiffs’ access to the church facility, and that the trial court would appoint a special master “to ensure that [an] Annual meeting be conducted within fifteen (15) days from the date of the hearing.” However, even before the judgment was executed, the Especial master had been appointed
Before the election could be held, the church sought and obtained a suspensive appeal of the April 18, 2011 judgment. The trial court executed the order granting the appeal on April 26, 2011.
Plaintiffs’ Motion to Dismiss
Despite the fact that the trial court granted the church a suspensive appeal, the Annual Meeting took place as scheduled on May 1, 2011, and a new slate of trustees was elected.
We deny this motion to dismiss the church’s appeal. In the court’s ruling on the plaintiffs’ supervisory writ addressing the issue of whether the church’s appeal was suspensive or devolutive, this court also ruled that the May 1, 2011 election “was null and void because it was conducted after the suspension of the preliminary _J_4Ínjunction order.” Ambush v. Mount Zion Baptist Church, Inc.,
Assignment of Error Number One
As stated, this court has already ruled that the May 1, 2011 election was void. However, the church now argues that any election held under the auspices of a court-appointed special master would be invalid. Specifically, the church points to La.R.S. 13:4165(A), which states “[p]ur-suant to the inherent judicial power of the court and upon its own motion and with the consent of all parties litigant, the court may enter an order appointing a special master in any civil action wherein complicated legal or factual issues are presented or wherein exceptional circumstances of the case warrant such appointment.” (Emphasis added.) However, in a situation almost identical to the one before us now, the second circuit approved the appointment of a special master where the parties did not object to the appointment of the special master when the trial court announced that it was going to appoint one. White v. Bd. of Dirs. of St. Elizabeth Baptist Church, 42,903 (La.App. 2 Cir. 1/9/08),
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” A similar pro
Given the extreme contention over the selection of the Board of Trustees and the many entwined issues that are pending in this and the lower courts, we find that there are exceptional circumstances within the meaning of La.R.S. 13:4165(A) that warrant the appointment of a special master.
Assignment of Error Number Two
In its other assignment of error, the church argues that the trial court erred in limiting the ability of the existing Board of Trustees to fulfill its obligations under the articles of incorporation to carry on the day-to-day operation of the church. Specifically, the church asserts that the trial court’s grant of church access to the plaintiffs, its requirement that the trustees provide a member of the opposition with a key to the church and its alarm code, and its requirement that no action be taken by any party to the litigation until the special master orchestrated an election impinged on the trustees’ authority.
A trial court’s determination as to whether to issue a preliminary injunction is subject to the abuse of discretion standard of review. Smith v. W. Va. Oil & Gas Co.,
Given the circumstances facing the trial court in this unfortunate litigation, we cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion in issuing these orders in dispute by use of a preliminary injunction. Basically, the trial court was attempting to cause the church to follow its own internal rules, and did so in the least intrusive way given the inability of the church members to effect any degree of cooperation.
DISPOSITION
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the trial court’s April 18, 2011 judgment and remand the matter to the trial court for further proceedings. The plaintiffs’ motion to dismiss is denied. All costs of this appeal are assessed to Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Incorporated.
GREMILLION, J., concurs and assigns written reasons.
Notes
. The caption of the plaintiffs’ petition names the defendant as The Mount Zion Baptist Church, Inc., through its Board of Trustees. In the petition itself, the plaintiffs identify the defendant as "the Board of Trustees of Mount Zion Baptist Church, Inc." Because the articles of incorporation of the church (which identify the corporation as Mount Zion Baptist Church, Incorporated and not Mount Zion Baptist Church, Inc.) provide that the corporate powers of the corporation are vested in a Board of Trustees, we will simply refer to the defendant in this litigation as the "church.”
. The transcript of the April 4, 2011 hearing reflects that at the end of the hearing, the trial judge ordered counsel for the litigants to join him in chambers for the purpose of selecting the person to be appointed as special master. No one objected to this action.
. Inexplicably, three days later the trial court executed an order granting the church a de-volutive appeal as well. In any event, the conflict arising from the execution of the de-volutive appeal order has been resolved by this court's unpublished ruling on a supervisory writ application filed by the church. In
. While this election has prompted numerous new filings, the issues raised by those filings are not before us.
Concurrence Opinion
concurs and assigns written reasons.
liThe actions taken by both the trial court and the majority of this court present a classic illustration of “making the best of a bad situation.” It is as clear to me as it is to the majority that the appointment of a special master to oversee the election of the Board of Directors was an entirely reasonable way of dealing with what the majority calls “extreme contention,” and “unfortunate circumstances.”
I also agree with the majority’s decision to rely on the precedent of the Second Circuit in White v. Board of Directors of St. Elizabeth Baptist Church,
However, the fact still remains that La. R.S. 13:4165(A) only allows for a special master upon “the consent of all parties litigant.” The court in White attempted to get around this obvious mandate by suggesting that the absence of a contemporaneous objection on the part of one of the litigants was somehow the equivalent to consent. It is not.
|2In the case before us, I would have preferred that the majority simply cite the White rule for the proposition that in the face of such hopeless chaos, the trial court need not obtain consent of all the parties. Instead, the majority doubles-down on the notion that no objection equals consent.
I am concerned that this logic could be extended beyond this situation to other analogous situations. After all, all special masters issues are, necessarily, “exceptional circumstances.” La.R.S. 13:4165.