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208 Ga. 233

65 S.E.2d 795

Smith v. Kelly

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided July 10, 1951

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1951-07-10

Relies on Stewart v. Jarriel · Knowles v. White

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1951-07-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently August 1993

8 state decisions

5019511960197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Head, Justice.

¶1 1. Courts are reluctant to interfere with the management of a church. When church property is devoted to a specific doctrine, the courts may prevent it from being diverted from such use. Code, § 22-408. In the present case a diversion from a specific doctrine is not alleged, nor is it alleged that the church property is being used for purposes contrary to the provisions in the deed to the original trustees.

¶2 2. The constitution and laws of the church organization are not pleaded or made a part of the petition; nor are facts alleged sufficient to enable a court of equity to determine which of the contending factions may have within its group the properly elected and qualified trustees as successors in trust of the church property. Jurisdiction to determine who are the duly constituted trustees of the church organization rests with the ecclesiastical forum of the organization, and not with a court of equity. Knowles v. White, 199 Ga. 772 (35 S. E. 2d, 451); Stewart v. Jarriel, 206 Ga. 855 (59 S. E. 2d, 368). The court properly sustained the genei’al demux’rer of the defendants.

¶3 Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur. *235 Elizabeth Brown and Maddox & Maddox, for plaintiffs. Hicks & Culbert, for defendants.
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