An appeals court has reinstated Utahn James Huntsman's fraud case against the LDS Church over millions of dollars in tithing.
In a major setback for the Utah-based faith, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 on Monday that a lower court judge erred by summarily tossing out Huntsman’s lawsuit, which alleges he was misled by church leaders and seeks to recover millions inThe California-based appellate court’s split opinion found that a genuine dispute over facts and the meaning of official statements by top church leaders remained when U.S.
“There is no statement in the record by any church official,” they wrote, “denying that tithing funds — either tithing principal or earnings on tithing principal — would be or were used to finance the bail out of Beneficial Life.” Funding for City Creek Center, shown in 2021, is at the center of a fraud lawsuit against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
”As we have previously stated, there was no fraud,” church spokesperson Sam Penrod said. “The church did exactly what President Gordon B. Hinckley said when it invested earnings on reserve funds in the City Creek project. The church looks forward to defending these facts in the next phase of the legal process.”The church’s legal argument throughout the case has been that no actual tithing was used in either $1.
“A reasonable juror could conclude that President Hinckley intended his audience to understand, when he said that no ‘tithing funds’ would be used to fund the City Creek Mall project, that neither tithing funds principal nor earnings on tithing principal would be used,” Fletcher wrote in the court’s majority opinion.
The court also turned aside a request from church lawyers to seal portions of the opinion dealing with aspects of its business and finances, saying there were “no compelling reasons” to do so.
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