First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. Dysinger

BURROUGHS, J.,

pro

tem.

This case was before this court upon a previous appeal. (See

First English Evangelical Lutheran Church

v.

Dysinger,

120 Cal. App. 139 [6 Pac. (2d) 522].) A judgment in favor of the defendants was reversed and upon a second trial judgment went for plaintiffs and the defendants have appealed therefrom. The facts of the first trial are stated in the opinion of the court and substantially the same evidence was introduced on the second trial. In the decision of the Court of Appeal above referred to certain principles of law were enunciated which thereby became the “law of the case”, and unless upon the subsequent trial the facts were essentially different, the law as determined by the previous decision is binding upon both the trial and the appellate courts. (2 Cal. Jur., pp. 944, 950, 951, secs. 555, 557.) At the second trial the defendants sought to amend their answer, but the application was denied. Thereupon counsel for defendants made an offer of proof of new evidence, which offer was rejected by the court. If the offered evidence was material then the court erred in rejecting it and the case should be remanded.

Some of the principles of law laid down by the previous decision are concretely stated in respondents’ brief as follows:

“First, the polity of this church organization is the type variously called Federated, Associated or Presbyterial. Civil courts, for their purposes, divide church polity into two classes. The other is known as the Congregational or Independent type. In it the local congregations are purely

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autonomous units, completely independent of any superior body. On the former appeal plaintiffs contended for the Federated polity and defendants for the Congregational. The court sustained plaintiffs. Appellants now say that the decision only inferentially adopts the Federated type. True, it does not say in so many words, ‘The polity here is Federated. ’

“Second, defendants’ attempted amendments to the local congregation’s constitution were illegal and void.