Opinion of US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals

7th Cir: Public online 08-2306 case documents as PDF and oral argument MP3
Opinion in case# 08-2306, Judge Sykes:

"When a district judge takes  sides in a religious schism, purports to decide matters of spiritual succession, and excludes dissenters from using the  name, symbols, and marks of the faith (as distinct from the name and marks of a church) [boldface added], the First Amendment line  appears to have been crossed."  
http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/fdocs/docs.fwx?caseno=08-2306&submit=showdkt&yr=08&n\ um=2306 

Or download Opinion as PDF in one click


p 7: False finding of "fact" by Judge Austin in 1966

p 13: "...civil authorities may not make judgments about religious controversies when deciding church property disputes.  Kedroff, 344 U.S. at 116. (The church-autonomy principle recognized in Watson “must now be said to have federal  constitutional protection as a part of the free exercise of religion against state interference.”)."
  "Building on Kedroff, the Supreme Court held in Presbyterian Church that “the First Amendment severely circumscribes  the role that civil courts may play in resolving church property disputes.”

p 14-15: "Considered in light of these First Amendment limitations on the court’s authority, certain aspects of the 1966  injunction are troubling. The decree declares that “there is only one Baha’i Faith,” that Shoghi Effendi was its last Guardian and none has come since, and the National Spiritual  Assembly was its representative and “highest authority” in the United States and was “entitled to exclusive use of the  marks  and symbols of the Faith,” including the exclusive use of the word “Bahá’í.” Declarations of this sort push the  boundaries of the court’s authority under Kedroff and Presbyterian Church. In church property disputes (trademark suits  obviously qualify), the First Amendment limits the sphere in which civil courts may operate. When a district judge takes  sides in a religious schism, purports to decide matters of spiritual succession, and excludes dissenters from using the  name, symbols, and marks of the faith (as distinct from the name and marks of a church) [boldface added], the First Amendment line  appears to have been crossed."

p 17: "’It is a principle of general application in Anglo-American jurisprudence that one is not
bound by a judgment in personam in a litigation in which he is not designated as a party or to which he has not been  made a party by service of process.’ ”"

p 20: The court expands on and concludes that the parties were simply not in privity with the 1966 flawed decision by  Judge Austin.


NOTE WELL: "a church," i.e., the Court clearly states, as a matter of incontestable historical fact, that the Wilmette nsa merely constitutes one of many interpretations of the Baha'i Faith.