By Steve Plunkett
St. Joseph’s Episcopal School has lost its bid for an injunction to allow it to continue operating on the grounds of St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church in Boynton Beach while a lawsuit between the parties is resolved.
The school claims it has an oral, 99-year lease to stay where it is, at 3300B S. Seacrest Blvd., until the year 2093.
The church says the school signed a five-year written lease in 2012 and was given a five-year extension that expired last November. Both sides last year agreed to extend the lease until June 30 while the dispute headed to court.
On Feb. 20, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Bradley Harper came out in favor of the church.
“At this stage of the case, Plaintiffs have not shown that there is a substantial likelihood of success on the merits given the absence of any writing which establishes the existence of a 99-year lease agreement,” he wrote, denying the injunction sought by the school and William Swaney, president of its board of trustees and a major donor.
“Further, it appears that the application and interpretation of Canon Law may be necessary to determine the legal rights and obligations of the parties with respect to the lease and operation of the school,” Harper wrote.
Lawyers for the school did not reply to an email seeking comment on Harper’s decision.
An outside publicist, Aimee Adler Cooke, responded on behalf of the lawyers for the church.
“We appreciate the court’s recognition of the written lease agreement that is in effect between the parties. The legal battle waged by the school has been trying, and we remain hopeful that Judge Harper’s ruling will move this matter toward closure for both parties,” Cooke said.
Harper has scheduled a Zoom hearing at 8:45 a.m. March 8 on a motion by the church to dismiss the school’s case for lack of jurisdiction.
The church’s legal team says “numerous Florida and related federal decisions confirm that where a dispute involves matters of Canon Law, internal church organization, or ecclesiastical rule, secular courts lack jurisdiction to resolve the dispute.”
In a separate filing, the school’s lawyers argue that this doctrine does not apply. “The instant dispute is not a theological dispute,” they wrote. “The only connection this case has to theology is that one party is a church.”
The school also alleges breach of contract by the church and misappropriation of restricted charitable donations.
The conflict arose last April when the church vestry decided not to renew the school’s $5-a-year lease. Parents of the school’s 175 students in pre-K through eighth grade scrambled to find a new place for their children in the coming year.
While the two entities share a name and location on Seacrest Boulevard, the school split off from the church in 1995.
That was a year after Swaney gave the church approximately $2.5 million worth of stock in his company, Perrigo, “for the express purpose of the church constructing buildings and facilities for use by the school,” the lawsuit says.
Swaney, the suit claims, made it clear to the vestry that he was making the gift in exchange for a promise, made orally several times, that the school would never be displaced from the property. The church sold the stock and built a gymnasium, library, classrooms and administrative offices.
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