Family Federation for World Peace and Unification International, et al. v. Hyun Jin Moon, et al.

The trial court found that Petitioners, including the Unification Church, are the victims of a $3 billion embezzlement orchestrated by Respondents, a former church member and his allies, who fraudulently seized the Church’s financial support organization and disbursed its assets. Leaving the Church remediless, the D.C. Court of Appeals reversed on First Amendment “entanglement” grounds, holding that neutral principles could not resolve the dispute and then refusing to decide who led the Church when the assets were stolen. The result is a rule effectively depriving churches of any remedy in property disputes if the usurper simply claims to be the church’s leader. That wrong conclusion conflicts with this Court’s precedents, falls on the wrong side of a substantial state court split, and undermines church autonomy. This Court has long required courts to identify and defer to church authorities on issues of polity, including in property disputes. Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 727 (1871). A sharply divided Court later authorized deciding disputes through “neutral principles of law” rather than deference. Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 602-603 (1979). Deference to church authorities, however, remained the rule if no neutral principles resolved the dispute. Id. at 604. The question presented is: Where necessary to resolve a church-property dispute, does the First Amendment prohibit courts from examining church-related facts to determine who leads the church?