In a boundary dispute in which plaintiff adverse possessor sought to quiet title by adverse possession to an adjoining piece of land owned by defendant nonprofit religious organization that plaintiff adverse possessor had inadvertently fenced in and later improved, plaintiff adverse possessor was entitled to summary judgment. (1) A nonprofit religious organization’s status as a “public benefit corporation’ does not make it a “public entity” immune from adverse possession under Cal. Civ. Code, § 1007. Accordingly, defendant’s property was not immune from adverse possession. (2) To obtain title, an adverse possessor is required to prove that he or she possessed the land under a claim of right; the possession was open and notorious enough to give reasonable notice; it was hostile and exclusive; and it was continuous and uninterrupted for five years. To obtain title, the adverse possessor is also required to prove that he or she timely paid all state, county, or municipal taxes that had been levied and assessed upon the land during the five years of alleged adverse possession. See Cal. Code Civ. Proc., § 325(b). Here, however, the nonprofit religious organization’s welfare exemption from property taxes under Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code § 214 meant that no such taxes were levied and assessed on the property during the years it qualified for the exemption, which included the five years plaintiff was in adverse possession. Consequently, under the plain and binding language of Code Civ. Proc., § 325(b), plaintiff adverse possessor was excused from the usual requirement that he pay taxes on the disputed land for five years. (3) The mosquito control and vector borne disease prevention assessment is not a tax. Thus, the adverse possessor was not required by Code Civ. Proc., § 325(b) to pay the assessment on defendant’s land in order to perfect his claim of adverse possession   Case # 4671 (Cal. Ct. App.)

The lower court improperly granted a city’s condemnation petition to acquire an easement over land owned by a church for sidewalk and traffic signal purposes. The grant of the petition violated a Minnesota statute which precluded placing “roads or streets” over land owned by religious corporations without the consent of the corporation’s governing board. For purposes of the statute, sidewalks are part of streets. Therefore, the statute precluded the use of the church’s land for sidewalk and signal light purposes without consent of the church’s governing board   Case # 3483 (Minn. Ct. App.)

Salt Lake City sold a portion of a main thoroughfare that passed between property owned by the Mormon Church to the Church so the Church could create a plaza. The City retained an easement for public use, but such use was limited to pedestrian traffic. Expressive activity by the public was limited unless permitted by the Church. Among the activities prohibited by the terms of the pedestrian easement were picketing, distributing literature, soliciting, begging, consuming alcoholic beverages or using tobacco products, sunbathing, erecting signs or displays, using loudspeakers or other devices to project music, sound or spoken messages. The Tenth Circuit, in Case # 1312 (10th Cir.), held, the pedestrian easement retained by the government retained its prior characteristic as a public forum and it was not constitutionally permissible for the City to retain a pedestrian easement but prohibit expressive conduct on the easement. If it wanted an easement, the City had to permit speech on the easement to the extent allowed in any traditional public forum. Otherwise, the Tenth Circuit held that the City had to relinquish the easement so the parcel became entirely the private property of the Church. Subsequently, after an acrimonious dispute over the continued validity of the City’s easement, the City relinquished the pedestrian easement. In exchange for giving up the easement, the City obtained a 2.125-acre property from the Church and cash to be used for the construction of a City community center for lower-income and underprivileged City residents. The City obtained nearly $5.4 million in value for giving up an Easement appraised at $500,000. In the present action, plaintiffs challenged, under the free speech and establishment clauses of the First Amendment, the relinquishment of the pedestrian easement. The district court denied plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. In addition, the court dismissed the amended complaint for failure to state a claim for which relief may be granted. The property at issue was now an entirely private, Church-owned Plaza devoid of any government property interests that could possibly create a public forum and the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment did not apply to the now-extinguished pedestrian easement. Nor did plaintiffs state a claim under the Establishment Clause. The sale of the easement to the Church, even assuming arguendo that it was partially motivated by the religious purposes of those involved, served a reasonable secular purpose and plaintiffs failed to allege that the City's actions had the principle or primary effect of advancing or endorsing religion, as a reasonable observer would not view the decision to sell the easement as communicating a message of government endorsement of the Church. In addition, plaintiffs failed to adequately allege that the sale of the easement created excessive entanglement between the City and the Church. If anything, the sale actually eliminated the likelihood of excessive entanglement. When the City merely elected one of two choices presented by the Tenth Circuit, it can hardly be said that the reason for its decision was to promote or endorse the Mormon Church. Plaintiffs claims under the religion clauses of Utah Const., Art. I, § 4, were also dismissed, see Case # 1696 (D. Utah). A panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals now affirmed, holding that because plaintiffs failed to show either that the Church was a state actor under the public function doctrine or that the Plaza constituted a public forum under the First Amendment, the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ free speech claims. The City’s continuing right of reverter or reentry under the facts did not require a holding in favor of plaintiffs. The sale of the easement did violate the establishment clause and the sale of easement to the Church was not a sham transaction entered into by the City only to allow the Church to more effectively convey its message  Case # 2046 (10th Cir.)