Should Tithing Be Refundable?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns a threat to the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion. James Huntsman, a former member, sued The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the return of $5 million that he paid in tithing over a period of 25 years. A lower court dismissed the case, but the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated the case.

A diverse group of religions sent a friend-of-the-court brief to the court claiming that the case will cause “constitutional chaos” because it is a “dangerous intrusion into internal religious issues.” The brief was from Jewish, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Seventh-day Adventist denominations as well as other organizations. 

The brief claims that the ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals “violates the First Amendment and threatens all denominations, which ‘now risk a deluge of dubious lawsuits over their use of donated funds.’” The specific issue concerning the group of religions is that the court said that “the issue at hand was secular, not religious.” The brief said that the statement “was an attempt to do an end run around First Amendment constraints.”

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Monday by a 2-1 vote to reverse the lower court decision to throw out the case. This vote means that two of the three judges believe that a jury should hear the case. Tad Walch published the following information in the Deseret News: 

A U.S. District Court judge granted the church’s motion for summary judgment in September 2021 and dismissed the lawsuit, which alleged the church defrauded its members by using tithing funds for purposes other than charitable purposes. Huntsman’s suit repeated others’ allegations that the church used $1.4 billion in tithing funds to help pay for City Creek Center in downtown Salt Lake City and $594 million in tithing funds to bolster Beneficial Financial Group during the 2008 financial crisis.

The Church of Jesus Christ has more than 17 million members and maintains that “tithing funds are used for religious purposes,” such as building and operating hundreds of temples, global missionary work, operating “more than 30,000 congregations and five colleges and universities.” A spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ made the following statement:

“The Court of Appeals decision returns part of this case to the trial court for further handling,” church spokesman Sam Penrod said. “As we have previously stated, there was no fraud. The church did exactly what President Gordon B. Hinckley said when it invested earnings on reserve funds in the City Creek project. The church looks forward to defending these facts in the next phase of the legal process.”

“In fact, tithing was not used on the City Creek project,” a church spokesman said when Huntsman filed the lawsuit in 2021. “As President Hinckley said in the April 2003 general conference of the church, the funds came from ‘commercial entities owned by the church’ and the ‘earnings of invested reserve funds.’ A similar statement was made by President Hinckley in the October 2004 general conference. Mr. James Huntsman’s claim is baseless.”

Judge Stephen V. Wilson, the district court judge who threw out the case two years ago, said the following:

Ultimately, this is not a case about whether defendant used tithing funds in any manner, directly or indirectly, to pay for the City Creek project…. Rather, the question is more specific: Did (President) Hinckley make a false statement when he said that tithing funds would not be used on the City Creek project, but earnings form invested tithing funds would be used on that project? As discussed about, no reasonable juror could find that the statement was false.”