The Missouri Baptist Foundation on June 8 has filed a “motion for rehearing and alternative application for transfer” of the Missouri Baptist Convention’s nearly 14-year-old case against the Foundation.
In other words, the Foundation asks that the Western District Court of Appeals, which upheld in a ruling on May 24 of the Cole County Circuit Court’s decision in favor of the MBC, rehear the case or transfer it to the Supreme Court of Missouri.
The Foundation’s motion for rehearing claims that the circuit court’s attempt at a final judgment does not resolve all of the Convention’s claims against the Foundation and therefore is not a final judgment.
The motion also argues that plaintiffs in the case lack standing to file suit because the court “overlooks and misinterprets the nature of the Foundation, which is a public benefit corporation. It doers not have members or shareholders, and it exists and operates solely for public and charitable purposes.”
“Corporate acts of a public benefit corporation are only susceptible to being questioned by the attorney general, a director, or a member of the corporation,” the motion states.
Finally, attorneys for the Foundation say the plaintiffs did not defeat the Foundation’s “affirmative defenses,” filed in response to plaintiffs’ move for summary judgment in the case. The plaintiffs did not establish that the affirmative defenses “fail as a matter of law,” as required by law, according to the motion.
Should the Western Appeals Court deny rehearing the case, “the Foundation respectively requests the Court to transfer the case to the Supreme Court of Missouri” for consideration, according to the motion.
