As the visitors were taking their places in the courtroom prior to the hearing, a comment from the press area was heard to say: “It looks like Society versus Piety.”

In the top floor courtroom of the Newberry (SC) courthouse, the doors opened at 9:45AM in anticipation of an 11:00AM start time. There were already more than a dozen people standing around the parking lot ready to enter – an indication of the great amount of interest in upcountry South Carolina concern the law suit of Taylor, Young, Chestnut and the Erskine Alumni Association (known as the Plaintiffs) against the General Synod of the of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (known as the Defendants).

Dr. Richard Taylor and Dr. Parker Young are both members of the ‘current’ Board of Trustees of Erskine College and Seminary that would be removed from that status if the actions approved by the Special Meeting of the ARP Synod that took place in Flat Rock, NC on March 3rd.

David Chesnutt is the current President of the Erskine College Alumni Association, and as such, is considered an ex-officio member of the Board of Trustees with voting rights. The Alumni Association Board of Directors, acting as the governing body of that group, voted to join the current law suit.

This lawsuit was filed only after the current Board of Trustees had voted on March 11th to withdraw a similar lawsuit against the Synod. In withdrawing that suit, the Executive Committee, acting for the Board, stated: “for the unity, peace, purity, and prosperity of the church we are instructing the chairman to withdraw the legal action that was brought to determine who constituted the legally appointed and responsible Board of Trustees of Erskine College. We do not intend to bring further legal action.”

The current lawsuit was then filed by the plaintiffs on March 16th. The contents of the Plaintiffs allegations are very similar to the original lawsuit, with the major difference being the ‘standing’ of the four plaintiffs to bring such a suit, which was contested during the March 25th hearing.

At the time of filing on March 16th, Judge Eugene C. “Bubba” Griffith, Jr, one of the Resident Circuit Court Judges for the 8th Circuit, granted the plaintiffs a ‘Temporary Restraining Order’ which resulted in stopping the actions approved at the ARP Synod meeting pending a court hearing. The March 25th hearing was to decide whether or not to turn the ‘temporary’ restraining order into a permanent Injunction, forbidding the Synod from taking any action until a final decision had been reached concerning the allegations of the lawsuit.

The venue of Newberry was requested for this hearing by the Judge and approved by the parties as it was the location of the Judge’s permanent offices. The case was filed in Abbeville County and, baring any change of venue,the actual case will be heard there.

The Newberry Courthouse turned out to be a suitable location, since the courtroom is the one of the largest in upcountry South Carolina, in fact larger than any in Greenville. With a comfortable seating capacity of at least 120, most of that room was needed as visitors kept filing in from 9:45AM when the door opened until convening at 11:05AM.

The visitors, following athletic traditions, for the most part chose seats on the side behind the benches of their respective attorneys. The crowd behind the Plaintiffs quickly filled up nearly every available seat, while the seats behind the Defendants were no more than half full.

As the visitors were taking their places in the courtroom prior to the hearing, a comment from the press area was heard to say: “It looks like Society versus Piety.”

Of course that was an exaggeration, but it was true that a large percentage of the visitors behind the Plaintiffs were many females, mostly sitting in family groupings, while the other side had at most one or two female visitors, and appeared to be mostly Ministers and Ruling Elders from the denomination.

As is typical in cases such as this, the attorneys for both sides were well acquainted and engaged in friendly banter as they gathered – which changed to occasional strongly expressed seriousness during the hearing.

Attorneys of record for the Plaintiffs are Ted Gentry and Mark Bakker of the Greenville firm of Wyche, Burgess, Freeman and Parham, along with John Devlin, Jr. and Brown Parkinson, Jr. of Devlin and Parkinson.

Attorneys of record for the Defendants are Keith Munson and Sandi Wilson from the Greenville office of Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice.

At about 10:55AM both sets of attorneys were called into the judge’s chambers, most probably to discuss the format of the hearing. They returned to the courtroom at 11:05AM and the hearing was called to order as Judge Griffith took the bench.

Throughout the nearly four hour long hearing, which resulted in many new documents not part of the original filings being passed out in multiple copies, Judge Griffith maintained the sort of gentle and kind personality one would expect from someone who acknowledges the call name, Bubba!

The hearing began with opening arguments from both parties. In the middle of a 30 minute statement from Ted Gentry of the Plaintiffs team, Keith Munson interrupted to ask the court if his length was in keeping with the prior agreement of ‘short’ opening arguments. The judge allowed Mr. Gentry to continue. Munson made a 15 minute statement.

For the most part, these statements contained highlights of the arguments from previously submitted briefs, with only one or two documents entered into the record.

The Plaintiffs stressed several key points. The first was the ‘threat of harm’ to Erskine College as a result of the actions taken by the Synod. Another was the allegation that the Synod had no right to remove board members without following the due process outlined in the By-Laws, which was not done.

Yet another was to emphasize that the College itself, as a non-profit corporation, owns all property and assets of the College, and not the Synod.

Mr. Gentry acknowledge that everyone agreed that the Synod had the right to appoint Trustees, but did not have the right to remove them; that only the Trustees themselves could remove Trustees by following due process.

Returning to the issue of ‘harm to the college’, Mr. Gentry stated that harm would result from not granting the injunction in that it would create two competing boards until such time as a final legal decision was reached, with administrators, students, prospective students and parents, and especially possible candidates for the ongoing search for a new President not knowing what the future might hold

Additionally on the harm issue, the attorney added that the potential would allow the Synod’s “Interim Board’ to sell assets.

One of the major points of contention was the issue of accreditation of both the college and seminary, with the allegation made that this was a ‘grave concern.’

Mr. Gentry concluded by pointing out that in order to seek injection, plaintiffs needed to prove both ‘irreparable harm’ which he felt had been done, plus the fact that the plaintiffs had the ‘likelihood of success’ in their lawsuit. He claim that, because the language of a 1991 filing with the State of South Carolina that stated that no trustee shall be removed without cause, that success was clear.

In Mr. Munson’s opening statement for the Defendants, he began by mentioning that the two individual Trustees did not have the standing to bring this case since they could only claim harm to themselves and not to the college, since they were not speaking for the entire Board. (He would return to this argument later in the hearing).

He then gave the court a brief history of the legal aspects of the founding of the College, including the approval by the state General Assembly in 1850 in granting the first charter, followed by similar action in 1872 granting a charter to the school in perpetuity. He then introduced copies of Resolutions filed with the state by the Board of Trustees in 1961, 1970, 1977 and 1980 pointing out that the language of the 1977 resolution which had been quoted by the Plaintiffs as substantial evidence that they would prevail had been superseded by the 1980 document.

It is clear that this will be a key issue for the courts to decide in this case. Mr. Munson gave examples of many other boards that have trustees that are appointed by and removed by authorized entities, while at the same time have a separate set of instructions as to how a Trustee can also be removed for cause. He used the illustration a number of times during the day that a representative of the ARP Women’s Work is appointed as a voting ex-officio member by action of the women and that this individual can be changed by the simple vote of the women at any time.

He then made reference to a portion of the state law concerning non-profits that the power of appointment of trustees includes the power of removal.

Concluding with the issue of whether the current board members have standing to bring the lawsuit, he reiterated that since their only harm of loss did not involve the College, they had other legal rights to sue under wrongful termination law.

With the opening statements complete, each side was allowed to call witnesses to add testimony to enlighten their cases.

The Plaintiffs call Dr. Parker Young, a retired Education professor from the University of Georgia who was a current Trustee and had previously served on the board as well. Attorney John Devlin, Jr. conducted all the testimony examination and cross examination for the Plaintiffs.

In his testimony, Dr. Young, who is a Erskine alumni and holds graduate degrees from the University of Georgia, stated that the Synod had only provided about 3-4% of the schools income in the past year; that in a meeting with the Commission which brought the report to the Synod meeting resulting in the decisions that had been approved, the Board agreed to go along with being reduced in size, but did not agree with the process of doing it all at once.

The Plaintiff’s attorney introduced a copy of a letter from the Association of Theological Schools concerning accreditation. ATS stated they would be visiting the school to examine the matter of change of governance that had been started. Dr. Young testified that this visit was an expression of grave concern which implied that there was threat of harm to the school. He concluded that portion by stating that what the Synod had done ‘was certainly not Christian.’

A 15 minute recess was called after a brief cross examination of Dr. Young.

After the break, the Defendants called their first witness, Mr. Kenneth Wingate, a member of the Synod’s Moderator’s Commission. He was a practicing attorney who is currently serving as the Chairman of the South Carolina Board of Higher Education.

In his examination, he rehearsed the problems relating to the college that the Synod has been dealing with for as long as 35 years, highlighting the most serious, recent issues.

When asked what the relationship of the Synod to the College was, Mr. Wingate described it as a mother and child being connected by an umbilical cord.

He also reiterated that according to current state law and documents filed with the state that the Synod has the right to remove Trustees without cause.

On cross examination he agreed with the Plaintiffs that this is the first time in the 160 year history of the school that any board member had been removed by the Synod, let alone the entire board being removed at one time.

He also responded that the Commission’s charge from the Synod included the reporting of recommendations for how to proceed to resolve the current problems and the Commission did not overstep its bounds.

When confronted with a clause in the college accrediting agency that stated one of the key issues to grant accreditation was that there be no ‘undue influence of outside religions bodies’, Mr. Wingate stated he felt that because of the connection of the Synod to the College, their influence was ‘due’.

The Defendants then called a second witness, who was in fact one of the Plaintiffs, Dr. Richard Taylor, a retired orthopedic surgeon from the Greenville area. He is a current Trustee who also had served a previous term on the Board.

Under cross, he was asked to comment on several of the facts and allegations to which he had signed an affidavit and declaration that the issues in the request for the Temporary Restraining Order were ‘true and accurate’ to the best of his ability.

One question involved the letter from the ATS accreditation agency (for the seminary) where the fact was that a threat existed. His response was that the sending of the letter itself was a threat. There was no cross examination of the witness.

At this point (and quite suddenly) the attorneys both agreed that they needed to file supplemental briefs to deal with the many new documents admitted into evidence and asked Judge Griffith for an extension.

After discussion, the Judge agreed to give both parties until Tuesday, March 30 to file their briefs and promised that he would issue his decision in less than 10 days. With days 9 and 10 of the period being Saturday and Sunday of Easter Weekend, most people connected with the court and case expressed the opinion that the decision concerning make the TRO a permanent injunction was be published no later than Friday, April 2nd.