Part of making the church better is simply making better decisions. Here are five ways you need to look at an issue to help you make a better decision.

1. Ask what course of action will bring God the most value.
2. Ask how a course of action will fulfill or break implicit or explicit commitments.
3. Ask who will be affected by the decision and seek their input.
4. Ask which course of action will best fulfill the church’s mission.
5. Ask which course of action would be best received by a lost community.

Another part of making the church better is to be more secure. Here are four ways to be more secure as a church.

1. Having better bylaws is the most important way to secure your church from a lawsuit.
2. Having better policies is another good way to secure your church from a lawsuit and from failure.
3. Having better processes is a great way to not only secure against a lawsuit but be more efficient as well.
4. Having better security is a good way to ensure that people have a safe place to worship.

Download the free 150-point checklist at www.TheChurchLawGroup.com/checklist.

Get sample bylaws and a sneak peek at Josh Bryant’s new book Bylaws and Business Meetings: Turning Pains to Gainsat www.ChurchBylawsBook.com.

Join the Law and Church Group on Facebook at www.facebook.com/groups/LawAndChurch.

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• What can we learn: 
  • Make sure you have an attorney like Josh Bryant at Church General Counsel working complex transactions.  This church stood to make money on the resale of property even after rollback taxes.  It could have been good for this congregation.  Now they will be lucky to break even because no attorney saw that two contracts contradicted each other and did not clearly outline who was responsible for rollback taxes. 
  • It’s wise to know some of these provisions of contract interpretation.  They are really pretty common sense, but knowing them can help you see problems before they occur. 

Sweet v. Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 

• What can we learn? 
  • We want to be good stewards, but we can’t fall into the trap that the ends justify the means. 
  • If you intentionally interfere in a vendor’s contract with a supplier to get a lower cost and that vendor can show damages (lost revenue minus costs), then you can be found liable for tortious interference. 
  • This does not only apply to contracts either.  If a sales person is trying to sell you Acme paper towels for your bathroom and you go straight to Acme to get a better price, you could be found liable for tortious interference with a business expectancy.   
  • These are crude hypotheticals and cases like this will be extraordinarily tied to specific facts; each case will be different.  Needless to say however, you must be careful when going around or undercutting one party to get a better deal from a party already in contract or an expectation of economic benefit from the party you did an end run around. 

Spirit of Aloha Temple v. County of Maui 

• What can we learn? 
  • Be very careful when purchasing land.  Try to make sure you can get a special use permit before buying. 
  • Do not go to the planning commission without a lawyer like Josh Bryant at Church General Counsel.  There is nothing that suggests this church did, but it could have been in more trouble had it made procedural mistakes before the planning commission. 
  • Not every ruling against a church is unreasonable.  The safety issue in this case appears legitimate except for the fact that other non-agricultural use permits in the area have been granted. 

Garfield Baptist Church v. City of Pewaukee 

• What can we learn: 
  • As in the previous case, make sure you have an attorney like Josh Bryant here at Church General Counsel when making objections to a public utility.  Because they are granted quasi-monopolies by the government, they act as quasi-governmental entities. 
  • Utility disputes must almost universally begin before the public service commission.  The church filed this directly with a trial court, which did not have jurisdiction to hear the dispute since the church did not go before the public service commission.  If you don’t get the ruling you want in the public service commission you can still get judicial review, but as with appeals from municipal or county commissions you can be limited in the evidence presented if things were not done properly in the initial administrative review.  Get an attorney like Church General Counsel involved early. 

Rector Church Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity Church v. City of Philadelphia Historical Commission 

• What can we learn? 
  • Churches are often donated land or purchase property for future use.  Failure to use that land for religious purposes creates difficulties - rollback taxes and denied relief under RULIPA are examples. 
  • Churches can often be designated as historic spaces because of how old many of the buildings are.  If you have an old church building that could be of some historical significance and you are making plans to dispose of that property, document your plans and actions very carefully.  This is a case in which the church probably should have made an allegation that this designation is basically a governmental taking of property subject to the Fifth Amendment’s taking clause often referred to as eminent domain. Get a legal opinion from Josh Bryant and Church General Counsel before things get too complicated.

Cruz v. Trustees of Calvary Baptist Church 

• What can we learn? 
  • Every state’s charitable immunity statutes follow a different system if they have charitable immunity statutes at all. 
  • Many states have repealed charitable immunity, and it is certainly disfavored in many jurisdictions that do have it. 
  • It is not wise to rely on charitable immunity to determine your course of action - it should only be used as a defense in a crunch if your state allows it. 

Cruz v. Roman Catholic Church of St. Gerard Magella 

• What can we learn? 
  • The decision hinged on the church relying on an affidavit signed 2.5 years after the incident stating that the worker was not using proper safety equipment.  However, no one mentioned this at the time in incident reports. 
  • If there is a personal injury on your church’s property: 
    • Find any and all witnesses. 
    • Get contemporaneous incident reports. 
    • Collect photographs, video, etc.
    • Call an attorney like Josh Bryant at Church General Counsel. 
    • You MUST preserve evidence. 

Lozada v. St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church 

• This case interprets the exact same law dealt with in the previous case.  In this case, a worker was installing wiring for a security system in the church when his ladder shifted.  The incident injured the workers’ back. 
• The case here hinged on the plaintiff testifying that no one was holding the ladder while his coworker testified that he was holding the ladder.  As you can see, this would be a great time to have contemporary incident reports so you could clearly show that someone was holding the ladder. 

Hartung v. Diocese of Rockville Centre 

• What can we learn? 
  • Obviously, if the church creates a hazard it has a duty to remediate it.  If someone gets hurt, you’ll be liable for the injury. 
  • If someone tells the church about the hazard, the church has a duty to remediate it.  If someone gets hurt, you’ll be liable for the injury. 
  • This is not a situation in which you can stick your fingers in your ears and close your eyes.  If you should know about the hazard then you have constructive notice.  If someone gets hurt, you’ll be liable for the injury. 

Newton Covenant Church v. Great American Insurance Company 

• What can we learn? 
  • Churches must follow their bylaws.  There would have been much less of a chance of litigation had the process been done properly. 
  • When making a major shift like leaving a denomination to join another, get an attorney like Josh Bryant at Church General Counsel to help walk you through that process and ensure proper parliamentary procedure is followed at the meeting. 

Eltingville Lutheran Church v. Rimbo 

• What can we learn? 
  • Once again, churches must follow their bylaws.  In this case, the bylaws subjected the local church to a higher synod.  As such, the synod’s determination to take over the church is purely a religious d...