Kirkley v. United Methodist Church

COOK, Justice.

This is the second appeal involving these parties.

The United Methodist Church and other church-affiliated institutions related to the control of a local United Methodist congregation in Haney’s Chapel filed a declaratory-judgment action, seeking to quiet title to the church property after the local congregation had voted to withdraw from the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. The defendants were Haney’s Chapel United Methodist Church and representative members of that congregation.

The trial court held that the United Methodist Church, not the local…