Federal judge dismisses another tithing lawsuit against the Church of Jesus Christ

A federal judge handed The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a major legal victory on Thursday, dismissing a lawsuit in which nine people sought the return of hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations they gave the church across a quarter of a century.

Judge Robert J. Shelby dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the nine plaintiffs cannot try again.

The church issued a statement through a spokesman, Sam Penrod.

“Tithing donations made by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are an expression of faith and allow the church to fulfill its divine mission,” Penrod said for the church. “These donations are carefully used and wisely managed, under the direction of senior church leaders. The legal claims brought against the church were rightfully dismissed by the court.”

During a January hearing, Shelby challenged the attorneys for the nine plaintiffs. He asked them repeatedly to help him understand why he should believe they had filed their claims within the time allotted by the statute of limitations. He also asked them over and over whether their complaint outlined the basic legal elements required by Utah fraud laws.

What Shelby appeared to identify as potential weaknesses to the case in January became fatal flaws in his ruling on Thursday.

Attorneys for the church argued in filings and in the January hearing that the legal clock began ticking on the statute of limitations in December 2019, when the Deseret News and more than a dozen other media outlets published stories about the release of a whistleblower report alleging wrongdoing by the church and Ensign Peak Advisors, an affiliated investment arm.

The first of the nine plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in late 2023. The others filed in two later complaints. Eventually, the courts consolidated the three cases.

“It ‘strains credulity’ that reasonably diligent individuals who had donated substantial sums of money to the church and were otherwise interested in church affairs would not have ‘learn[ed] of matters’ described in the report at or near the time of its release,” Shelby wrote in his 44-page decision. “… And yet plaintiffs filed the earliest of the individual suits underlying the present multidistrict litigation in October 2023, approximately three years and 10 months after the whistleblower report was published.”

Church attorneys also argued that the plaintiffs’ claims didn’t meet the legal standard for fraud.

“The court agrees with the church that plaintiffs’ claims are barred by the statute of limitations and are not adequately pled,” Shelby ruled.

The ruling marks the second time in three months that the Church of Jesus Christ has won a court victory protecting tithing and other donations. On Jan. 31, a panel of 11 judges of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a unanimous ruling that dismissed James Huntsman’s lawsuit seeking the return of $5 million he donated to the church.

But Thursday’s ruling did not go as far the church might have liked. The attorney who argued on behalf of the church in January, former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, said then that the No. 1 reason Shelby should deny the claims by the 13 plaintiffs was because of a legal precedent known as the church autonomy doctrine or religious autonomy doctrine.

Shelby ruled that he could not consider it.

“Indeed, the judicial canon of constitutional avoidance requires the court to focus on nonconstitutional failures before reaching the church autonomy doctrine,” he wrote. “Ultimately, the court does not reach defendants’ church autonomy doctrine arguments here because the pending motions compel dismissal of plaintiffs’ consolidated complaint on other grounds.”

The majority ruling on behalf of the church by the 9th Circuit Court panel in California also declined to consider the church autonomy doctrine.

That doctrine could become a central part of a final tithing case now pending before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado. In that case, three former church members accused the church of propounding false beliefs and misrepresenting its history and practices to defraud members of donations.

Shelby also heard the case. He dismissed most of the case, but the defendants, including Laura Gaddy, appealed to the 10th Circuit. A panel of three judges heard oral arguments in September. They have yet to issue a decision, but they indicated they saw barriers to the suit in church-autonomy precedent.

The nine plaintiffs in the case dismissed Thursday had asked Shelby to turn their claims into a class action lawsuit and appoint a special master to oversee the church’s tithing distribution.

The plaintiffs were Daniel Chappell, Masen Christensen, John Oaks, Mark Wilson, Joel Long, Brandall Brawner, Kevin Risdon, Gene Judson and Michelle Judson. Their complaint said they collectively donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the church, but they did not specify how much of that they provided in tithing or fast offerings or other donations, Shelby wrote.

Read the full story at deseret.com

---

A previous version of this story misstated the name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It has since been corrected.