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Addendum in light of the Presiding Bishop’s April 30, 2008 Letter to the House of Bishops: |
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Written by Confidential to ACI
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Tuesday, 06 May 2008 |
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A defense now proffered by the Presiding Bishop and her supporters is that the same procedures were followed in the recent cases of Bishops Davies and Moreno. Past violations of the canon’s clear provisions are said to justify current ones. In considering this defense, it is necessary to distinguish three senses of “precedent” in legal usage. One is the well-known sense of precedent as a formal ruling on a legal issue by a competent juridical body. This is clearly not the case here as no one has suggested that the prior cases were determined to be canonical by any body reviewing the canonical issues. These cases are not offered as reasoned legal rulings, but as a fait accompli.
A second sense of precedent is that in which the actions of parties to
a contract are used to interpret terms that are vague or ambiguous. In
civil law this concept is referred to as “course of performance,” and
this type of precedent is often used as an aid to interpretation for
vague or ambiguous contractual terms such as those relating to
timeliness or quality. For example, terms like “promptly” or “standard
grade” are ones that can sometimes be interpreted by the parties’
performance. The applicability of this principle can be seen in the
present context by noting that the meaning of the vague term
“forthwith” in Canon IV.9 is given meaning by the Presiding Bishop’s
own action in giving notice to Bishop Schofield within 48 hours of
receiving the certification from the Review Committee. But the
requirements of inhibition in IV.9 and for consent by a majority of the
whole number of bishops entitled to vote are not vague or ambiguous
terms. They are expressed in mandatory language using precise terms
that are clearly defined and used elsewhere in the canons. Express
terms control when in conflict with arguable interpretations based on
prior actions.
The third type of precedent is one that is often encountered in
commercial litigation and corporate law. This is when clear
contractual or legal duties are repeatedly violated. Here the past
misconduct is to no avail absent an explicit waiver. Especially
relevant to the current context is a pattern familiar to any corporate
lawyer: that of a closely-held corporation that does not follow its own
bylaws. Such corporations, owned by one or a small number of
shareholders, have many of the same duties in terms of corporate
formalities and procedural regularity as public corporations traded on
national stock exchanges. Corporate law requires that proper
procedures be followed in order for an enterprise to receive legal
recognition and protection as a corporation. Often the sole
shareholder of a corporation pays no attention to these formalities or
the requirements of the corporate bylaws. The business is simply run
as the shareholder sees fit.
But when the litigation arises and a hostile party asks the court to
disregard the corporate form and permit a suit directly against the
shareholder, those past “precedents” of ignoring the corporate rules
are to no avail. In fact, the naked “we’ve done it this way before”
becomes evidence for the other side, the primary evidence that the
corporate form is a sham. The frequent result in such cases is that
the law disregards the corporate form --it “pierces the corporate
veil”-- and the shareholder’s assets are no longer protected as
intended by the corporation. Corporations that seek the law’s
recognition must follow the legal requirements and their own rules.
Past malfeasance is not a defense; to the contrary it is proof of a
pattern of abuse that exacerbates the current violation. It is a
supreme irony that Bishop Lamb is now petitioning the California courts
to defer to TEC’s polity and recognize him as the bishop of San Joaquin
when the clear provisions of TEC’s canons indicate Bishop Schofield has
not been lawfully deposed.
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