The Greenville News in its online edition for Saturday, June 26 is reporting that the three men who filed the lawsuit (plaintiffs) against the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church have agreed to dismiss their lawsuit.

This is the first public statement from the two Erskine College trustees and President of the Alumni Association since the close of the ARP General Synod meeting on Thursday, June 10. The Trustees involved were Richard Taylor and Parker Young, and the Alumni rep was J. David Chestnut. Officially, the lawsuit also included the Alumni Association as a plaintiff.

As previously reported in The Aquila Report (http://bit.ly/dbqdrk) a last minute agreement was worked out on the closing evening of the Synod by an attorney from each side of the situation who were also delegates to the Synod to resolve the issues between Erskine board members and the Synod.

However, this agreement had two contingencies that had to be met, quoting the words of the motion passed by the Synod: “…contingent upon the plaintiffs dismissing the lawsuit against the General Synod of the ARP and the General Synod not being required to pay any of the Plaintiffs attorney’s fees…”

The report in the Greenville News only speaks to one of these contingencies:

A lawyer for (the plaintiffs) said he has sent a proposed settlement agreement to the Synod’s attorney. “Dr. Taylor and his co-plaintiffs have agreed in principle to have the suit and the appeal dismissed,” attorney John Devlin said. “The suit has served its purpose by preventing the dismissal of the Erskine board, and all that remains is for the terms of the dismissal to be agreed upon.”

However, there is anecdotal evidence that this proposed settlement agreement includes meeting the second contingency. As the Greenville News also reported, in an Erskine Alumni closed Facebook group the moderator recently posted a comment that a group is collecting donations to assist the plaintiffs in paying their legal fees.

Members of the Executive Board of the ARP Synod most certainly will be dealing with this proposal early next week. It is doubtful that they will make any public comments concerning their response until they finalize their decision, but The Aquila Report will continue to seek more details of this probable solution to the three month legal standoff.