First United Methodist Church of Hobe Sound, Florida, Inc., et al. v. The Board of Trustees of the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, Inc., et al.

FIRST D ISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
S TATE OF FLORIDA
_____________________________
No. 1D2023-1048
_____________________________
F IRST UNITED M ETHODIST
C HURCH OF H OBE SOUND,
FLORIDA , I NC ., et al.,
Appellants,
v.
THE B OARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE
FLORIDA A NNUAL CONFERENCE
OF THE UNITED M ETHODIST
C HURCH, I NC ., et al.,
Appellees.
_____________________________
On appeal from the Circuit Court for Bradford County.
George M. Wright, Judge.
April 8, 2026
N ORDBY, J.
This case presents the weighty issue of whether a state court
may wade into an intra-church property dispute. Appellants, a
group of churches, seek to disaffiliate from the United Methodist
Church (UMC) and its clergy. Each of these churches wants to keep
its real property when doing so.
The parties litigated the matter internally through UMC’s
highest adjudicatory body. That ecclesiastical court concluded that

2
any disaffiliation had to proceed under a specific provision of
UMC’s governing document. This ruling meant that Appellants
would have to pay a sum of money to UMC in order to retain their
property upon disaffiliation.
Appellants then filed this lawsuit to invalidate part of UMC’s
governing document. As the trial court described the situation,
members of these churches “are faced with either remaining a part
of a religious organization they believe has abandoned its central
ten[e]ts, or giving up the land where their relatives are buried, the
sanctuary where their children were baptized, and the place in
their community where the most important moments in their lives
are marked.” From UMC’s perspective, Appellants are asking a
state court to intrude on a matter already resolved by UMC’s
highest ecclesiastical court.
The trial court concluded that, because Florida has adopted a
deference 	approach 	to 	property 	disputes 	within 	hierarchical
churches, it could not consider Appellants’ property dispute claims.
Accordingly, it dismissed the case. For the reasons that follow, we
must affirm. That said, we also certify a question of great public
importance to the Florida Supreme Court.
I.
In 1968, UMC was founded and established as a hierarchical
denomination 	of 	Christianity. 	Structurally, 	it 	is 	a 	four-tier
religious 	organization. 	Sitting 	at 	the 	top 	lies 	“The 	General
Conference,” 	followed 	by 	regionally 	divided 	“Jurisdictional
Conferences.” Third are the “Annual Conferences,” and finally, the
“Local Churches.”
UMC’s governing document is “The Book of Discipline of the
United Methodist Church.” Upon affiliation with the UMC, local
churches and members must submit to the Discipline. Submission
requires assenting to both theological and practical statements. In
2019, UMC “affirmed its commitment to the greater orthodox
doctrine 	of 	the 	universal 	church,” 	but 	Appellants 	argue 	that
affirmation was in vain. Appellants claim that departures from the
Discipline by clergy and other churches caused them to seek
disaffiliation. Coinciding with the theological shift, UMC amended

3
the Discipline to change the conditions under which local churches
may disaffiliate from the UMC. Previously, potential disaffiliates
were governed solely by the “Trust Clause” of the Discipline:
1. All properties of United Methodist local churches and
other United Methodist agencies and institutions are
held, in trust, for the benefit of the entire denomination,
and ownership and usage of church property is subject to
the Discipline.
***
The 	United 	Methodist 	Church 	is 	organized 	as 	a
connectional structure, and titles to all real and personal,
tangible and intangible property held . . . by a local
church or charge, or by an agency or institution of the
Church, shall be held in trust for The United Methodist
Church and subject to the provisions of its Discipline.
***
2. The trust is and always has been irrevocable, except as
provided in the Discipline. Property can be released from
the trust, transferred free of trust or subordinated to the
interests of creditors and other third parties only to the
extent authority is given by the Discipline.
3. 	Local 	churches 	. 	. 	. 	may 	acquire, 	hold, 	maintain,
improve, and sell property for purposes consistent with
the mission of the Church, unless restricted or prevented
by the Discipline.
The Discipline ¶ 2501 (italics in original). The Discipline also
provided specific language that all local churches were required to
incorporate into the deeds of their real property. Absence of the
provided language, however, did not relieve a local church of its
responsibilities towards the mother-church, nor did it absolve the
local church from “the responsibility to hold all of its property in
trust for” the UMC. The Discipline ¶ 2503.6. Instead, before 2019,
for a local church to be relieved of its duties under the Discipline,
the governing document provided:

4
With the consent of the presiding bishop and of a majority
of the district superintendents and of the district board of
church location and building and at the request . . . of a
meeting of the membership of the local church, . . . the
annual conference may instruct and direct the board of
trustees of a local church to deed church property to . . .
another evangelical denomination under a[] . . . comity
agreement, provided that 	such 	agreement shall 	have
been committed to writing and signed and approved by
the duly qualified and authorized representatives of both
parties concerned.
The Discipline ¶ 2548.2.
But 	in 	2019, 	the 	following 	paragraph 	was 	added 	to 	the
Discipline, modifying how potential disaffiliates were to proceed:
Because of the current deep conflict within The United
Methodist Church . . . a local church shall have a limited
right, 	under 	the 	provisions 	of 	this 	paragraph, 	to
disaffiliate 	from 	the 	denomination 	for 	reasons 	of
conscience regarding a change in the requirements and
provisions of the Book of Discipline . . . as resolved and
adopted by the 2019 General Conference, or the actions
or inactions of its annual conference related to these
issues . . . .
The Discipline ¶ 2553.1. Appellants contend that the 2019 addition
to the Discipline created onerous and cost prohibitive restraints on
disaffiliation. 	Under 	this 	new 	paragraph, 	as 	part 	of 	the
disaffiliation process, Appellants must pay a sum of money to keep
their property. Appellants cannot negotiate nor internally appeal
the price for disaffiliation, which is set unilaterally by the Annual
Conference.
So, as Appellants describe the situation in their amended
complaint, rather than allowing the local churches to amicably
disaffiliate under paragraph 2548.2, the Annual Conference is
holding Appellants’ property “for ransom” by requiring them to
proceed under the newly minted paragraph 2553. The record
reflects that, in 2022, the question over which paragraph provided

5
the proper pathway for disaffiliation by local churches was decided
by UMC’s highest internal judicial body. In Decision No. 1449, the
Judicial Council concluded that paragraph 2548.2 could not be
used for disaffiliation; instead, paragraph 2553 provided the sole
route for local churches to exit UMC.
Below, 	Appellants’ 	amended 	complaint 	asserted 	several
counts. Some counts challenged the Trust Clause of the Discipline
as invalid for violating chapters 689 (Conveyances of Land and
Declarations of Trust) and 736 (Florida’s Trust Code) of the Florida
Statutes. Other counts asserted UMC and its Bishop breached a
fiduciary duty to the church trust and sought an accounting. UMC
responded that the lower court could not adjudicate the claims
because of the hierarchical deference approach––an ecclesiastical
abstention doctrine under which secular courts defer to a church’s
hierarchical authority on matters of internal church governance
and intra-church property disputes. Appellants asserted that their
claims were not ecclesiastical in nature, and thus the neutral
application of Florida trust law should resolve the dispute. The
trial 	court 	agreed 	with 	UMC 	that 	the 	hierarchical 	deference
doctrine barred its consideration of Appellants’ claims. In the
alternative, the trial court also concluded that the “local action
rule” set out in section 47.011, Florida Statutes, barred Appellants’
attempt to invalidate the Discipline’s Trust Clause. The trial court
accordingly 	dismissed 	Appellants’ 	amended 	complaint. 	This
appeal follows.
II.
The 	First 	Amendment 	to 	the 	United 	States 	Constitution
states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Amend. I, U.S.
Const. The Florida Constitution makes similar guarantees. Art. I,
§ 	3, 	Fla. 	Const. 	Courts 	thread 	a 	fine 	needle 	when 	religious
institutions make competing property law claims. As the United
States Supreme Court has explained, “First Amendment values
are plainly jeopardized when church property litigation is made to
turn on the resolution by civil courts of controversies over religious
doctrine and practice.” Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese for U.S. of Am.
and Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 709–10 (1976) (quoting
Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church, 393 U.S. 440, 449 (1969)).

6
Thus, the Supreme Court has recognized two main approaches for
resolving intra-church property disputes, either of which a State
may choose to adopt.
A.
The 	first 	method, 	sometimes 	called 	the 	ecclesiastical
abstention doctrine, or the hierarchical deference approach, is (as
its 	name 	suggests) 	deferential: 	“whenever 	the 	questions 	of
discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law have
been decided by the highest of these church judicatories . . . the
legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final, and as binding
on them . . . .” Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 727 (1872); see also
Milivojevich, 	426 	U.S. 	at 	709 	(“[T]he 	First 	and 	Fourteenth
Amendments 	mandate 	that 	civil 	courts 	shall 	not 	disturb 	the
decisions of the highest ecclesiastical tribunal within a church of
hierarchical polity . . . .”). This is because “those who voluntarily
unite themselves to a religious association do so with an implied
consent to the association’s manner of governance and are bound
to submit to it.” New Jerusalem Church of God, Inc. v. Sneads
Cmty. Church, Inc., 147 So. 3d 25, 28 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013) (citing
Watson, 80 U.S. at 728–29).
In 	first 	recognizing 	this 	deferential 	method 	in 	1872, 	the
Supreme Court made clear it was rejecting the English common
law approach to such property disputes. Watson, 80 U.S. at 727.
Under the English “true standard of faith” rule, a court was to
“inquire and decide for itself, not only what was the nature and
power of [a church’s ecclesiastical governance], but what is the true
standard of faith in the church organization, and which of the
contending parties before the court holds to this standard.” Id.
Thus, 	courts 	were 	to 	fully 	engage 	in 	the 	dispute 	and 	award
property to the faction demonstrating adherence to the established
tenets of the church. Michael W. McConnell & Luke W. Goodrich,
On Resolving Church Property Disputes, 58 Ariz. L. Rev. 307,
311-12 (2016).
Explaining that its departure from the English approach was
“founded in a broad and sound view of the relations of church and
state under our system of laws, and supported by a preponderating
weight of judicial authority,” the Supreme Court was candid.

7
Watson, 80 U.S. at 727. It did “not think the doctrines of the
English Chancery Court on this subject should have with us the
influence which we would cheerfully accord to it on others.” Id.
at 729.
As 	for 	non-hierarchical 	churches—existing 	as 	a 	“strictly
congregational 	or 	independent 	organization, 	governed 	solely
within itself, either by a majority of its members or by such other
local 	organism 	as 	it 	may 	have 	instituted 	for 	the 	purpose 	of
ecclesiastical 	government”—the 	deference 	approach 	would 	not
apply (as there was no hierarchical authority to afford deference).
Id. at 724. Instead, in the event of a schism or property dispute,
“the rights of such bodies to the use of the property must be
determined by the ordinary principles which govern voluntary
associations.” Id. at 725.
Notably, the Supreme Court did not resolve a constitutional
claim in Watson. Rather, it made a pre-Erie1 federal common law
ruling over who owned the church property. But in a series of
twentieth century cases, the Court would later declare the English
rule 	constitutionally 	impermissible 	and 	ground 	Watson’s
hierarchical deference approach under the umbrella of the First
Amendment. See, e.g., Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral of Russian
Orthodox Church in N. Am., 344 U.S. 94, 120–21 (1952) (“Ours is
a government which by the ‘law of its being’ allows no statute, state
or national, that prohibits the free exercise of religion. There are
occasions 	when 	civil 	courts 	must 	draw 	lines 	between 	the
responsibilities of church and state for the disposition or use of
property. Even in those cases when the property right follows as
an 	incident 	from 	decisions 	of 	the 	church 	custom 	or 	law 	on
ecclesiastical issues, the church rule controls. This under our
Constitution necessarily follows in order that there may be free
exercise of religion.”) (footnotes omitted); see generally McConnell
& Goodrich, supra, at 315–16.
1 Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938).

8
B.
The second approach calls for applying “neutral principles of
law” to resolve church property matters. Under this method, a
court’s application of neutral principles of law “relies exclusively
on objective, well-established concepts of trust and property law
. . . . [and] ensure[s] that a dispute over the ownership of church
property 	will 	be 	resolved 	in 	accord 	with 	the 	desires 	of 	the
members” 	as 	any 	other 	private 	right 	dispute. 	Jones 	v. 	Wolf,
443 U.S. 595, 603–04 (1979).
In 	approving 	the 	approach, 	the 	Court 	in 	Jones 	v. 	Wolf
highlighted the benefits of applying neutral principles to church
property 	disputes. 	The 	approach 	was 	“completely 	secular 	in
operation, and yet flexible enough to accommodate all forms of
religious organization and polity.” Id. at 603. Of course, the method
would likely not be “wholly free of difficulty.” Id. at 604. But the
method’s 	positives—“the 	promise 	of 	nonentanglement 	and
neutrality”—can outweigh the negatives. Id.
With its recognition of the neutral principles approach as a
constitutionally 	permissible 	alternate 	method, 	however, 	the
Supreme Court made clear that each state could choose which
method to employ: “the First Amendment does not dictate that a
State must follow a particular method of resolving church property
disputes.” Id. at 602. “Indeed, ‘a State may adopt any one of various
approaches for settling church property disputes so long as it
involves no consideration of doctrinal matters, whether the ritual
and 	liturgy 	of 	worship 	or 	the 	tenets 	of 	faith.’” 	Id. 	(quoting
Maryland & Va. Churches v. Sharpsburg Church, 396 U.S. 367,
368 (1970) (Brennan, J., concurring)).
C.
Given that the U.S. Constitution permits states to employ
either approach to resolve intra-church property disputes, states
have exercised that choice. A majority of states employ some
version 	of 	the 	neutral 	principles 	approach. 	See 	McConnell
& Goodrich, supra, at 319 (citing a 2008 survey of states that
reflected “29 states [having] adopted some version of the ‘neutral

9
principles’ approach, while 9 retained the Watson approach, and
12 are unclear or undecided”). But Florida stands in the minority.
Florida courts abide by the hierarchical deference approach.
This is because the Florida Supreme Court (both pre- and post-
Jones v. Wolf) recognized and approved Watson’s hierarchical
deference approach to resolving intra-church property disputes.
See Mills v. Baldwin, 362 So. 2d 2, 4–5 (Fla. 1979) (Mills I)
(quashing 	a 	district 	court 	decision 	that 	had 	applied 	“neutral
principles 	of 	law” 	and 	adhering 	to 	the 	hierarchical 	deference
approach), vacated and remanded, 443 U.S. 914 (1979), reinstated,
Mills v. Baldwin, 377 So. 2d 971 (Fla. 1979) (Mills II) (reinstating
Mills I as “not inconsistent” with Jones v. Wolf), cert. denied,
446 U.S. 983 (1980); New Jerusalem Church of God, 147 So. 3d at
29 (“The history of Mills makes it ‘apparent that Florida has made
the decision to apply the deference to church authority approach
when resolving church property disputes.’”) (quoting Townsend v.
Teagle, 467 So. 2d 772, 775 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985)); Bethel AME
Church of Newberry, Florida v. Domingo, 654 So. 2d 233, 234 (Fla.
1st DCA 1995) (“The principle of church structure which governs
church property disputes, as articulated in [Mills I], requires that
church property remain with the parent church where, as here, the
church is hierarchical in structure.”); see also St. John’s Presbytery
v. Cent. Presbyterian Church of St. Petersburg, 102 So. 2d 714, 718
(Fla. 1958) (“When the church is representative, republican or
episcopal in government, the authorities uniformly hold that the
church property whether held by an express or an implied trust
cannot be diverted from the parent church by those who withdraw
from it and form a separate denomination. It matters not whether
those who withdraw from the mother church constitute a majority
or a minority faction, the church property remains with the mother
church.”).
This Court has thus articulated a two-part test to determine
whether the deference approach applies. First, we decide whether
a religious institution is hierarchical. New Jerusalem Church of
God, 147 So. 3d at 28–30. Then, if so, we decide whether the local
church is affiliated with that hierarchy. Id. When local churches
are part of a denomination’s hierarchy, and thereby subordinate to
it, the hierarchy must be able to dictate the terms of disaffiliation
and the consequences thereof. Id. at 29–30 (citing Full Gospel

10
Temple of Tallahassee v. Redd, 82 So. 2d 589, 590 (Fla. 1955)
(“When appellants withdrew from the parent church . . . , they
carried nothing but their membership with them; the 	parent
church retained title to the properties.”)).
To be clear, not all activity by religious institutions or clergy
is shielded from state court involvement. In a third-party tort
claim against a church, the Florida Supreme Court recognized the
distinction between disputes that are “intra-church” and those
that arise between churches and third parties. Malicki v. Doe,
814 So. 2d 347, 356 (Fla. 2002) (“Intrachurch disputes, however,
must be distinguished from disputes between churches and third
parties.”). In the latter category,
A court thus must determine whether the dispute is an
ecclesiastical 	one 	about 	discipline, 	faith, 	internal
organization, or ecclesiastical rule, custom or law, or
whether it is a case in which [it] should hold religious
organizations liable 	in civil courts for 	purely secular
disputes 	between 	third 	parties 	and 	a 	particular
[religiously affiliated] defendant.
Id. 	at 	at 	357 	(first 	alteration 	in 	original) 	(emphasis 	added)
(quotations and citations omitted). Accordingly, in third-party
disputes, “[a] church or religious organization seeking to avoid
application of a neutral state law must first show why application
of 	the 	law 	requires 	adjudication 	of 	an 	ecclesiastical 	matter.”
Malichi v. Archdiocese of Miami, 945 So. 2d 526, 529 (Fla. 1st DCA
2006) (citing Malicki, 814 So. 2d at 354).
III.
Appellants contend that their case is not precluded by the
hierarchical 	deference 	doctrine. 	Because 	they 	raise 	state-law
claims against the Discipline’s Trust Clause, in Appellants’ view,
it is appropriate for a state court to wade into the dispute and
resolve the matter on neutral state-law principles. But that view
ignores the backdrop of the hotly contested internal church dispute
that led to the filing of the complaint. It also disregards the
significant implications of a state court considering claims that

11
seek to undo the internal adjudication of the property dispute by
the church’s highest judicial council.
On its face, Appellants’ amended complaint reveals that this
suit 	arises 	from 	a 	church 	governance 	dispute. 	Because 	the
hierarchy changed the Discipline in 2019 to allow the Annual
Conference to determine which section of the Discipline to apply to
a local church’s disaffiliation request, Appellants assert that UMC
is “hold[ing] for ransom” the local churches’ real and personal
property. We acknowledge that Appellants are dissatisfied that
UMC 	chose 	one 	paragraph 	in 	the 	Discipline 	to 	resolve 	their
internal 	dispute, 	rather 	than 	another. 	But 	this 	Court 	is
jurisdictionally incapable of forcing UMC to apply one provision of
its governing document over another. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 713
(“For civil courts to analyze whether the ecclesiastical actions of a
church judicatory are . . . ‘arbitrary’ must inherently entail inquiry
into the . . . substantive criteria by which they are supposedly to
decide the ecclesiastical question. But this is exactly the inquiry
that the First Amendment prohibits . . . .”). As a way around that
conclusion, though, Appellants make the following two arguments.
A.
First, Appellants argue that whether the Trust Clause in the
Discipline creates a valid trust is a legal question that can be
resolved via the application of neutral principles of law. At the
outset, they must prove that this Court may do so. Appellants offer
Flynn v. Estevez, 221 So. 3d 1241 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017), to suggest
that this Court’s default position is to apply neutral principles of
law, unless the religious institution proves that the dispute is
ecclesiastical. True, Flynn recognized that the Florida Supreme
Court and our sister districts have applied neutral principles of
law for “secular tort claims by third parties against a religious
institution, 	allegations 	of 	fraudulent 	misrepresentation, 	[and]
claims of breach of contract.” Flynn, 221 So. 3d at 1247 (collecting
cases) (footnotes omitted). But none of those cases are relevantly
similar to the claims here. Indeed, in Flynn, we noted the “core
application” of Watson’s hierarchical deference doctrine to “cases
where a court intrudes on a church’s autonomous management of
its own internal affairs and property” and thus “burdening or
inhibiting the exercise of religious freedom.” Id. at 1246.

12
In Flynn, a Catholic diocese set a policy that required all
students in its private schools to be vaccinated. Id. at 1243. A
Catholic 	parishioner 	attempted 	to 	apply 	a 	state 	statute 	that
created a religious exemption for vaccination requirements in
public and private schools against the Diocese. Id. Given that the
Roman Catholic Church is hierarchical and “governance of its
parochial schools is inherently religious,” this Court rejected the
neutral principles of law approach to resolve the dispute and
deferred to the Church on the intra-faith “kerfuffle” underlying the
dispute. Flynn, 221 So. 3d at 1249, 1251. (“We can’t help but note
the incongruity of 	giving 	primacy to 	a parishioner’s religious
viewpoint that is contrary to that of his mother-church on the same
topic . . . it would be an odd role reversal––a devotee’s tail wagging
the corpus of church leadership––to do so.”).
The 	cases 	in 	which 	Florida 	courts 	applied 	the 	neutral
principles of law approach are even less helpful to Appellants than
Flynn. Each of those cases involves either third parties suing a
religious institution or, in one instance, a non-hierarchical church
being subject to statutory, non-profit board removal processes
because the church did not have bylaws. See Malicki, 814 So. 2d
at 347 (allowing neutral principles of tort law to resolve claim for
negligent hiring against Catholic Church where priest was alleged
to sexually batter minors); Bilbrey v. Myers, 91 So. 3d 887 (Fla. 5th
DCA 2012) (applying neutral principles of defamation law to third
party suit against former pastor and church); Bendross v. Readon,
89 So. 3d 258 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012) (neutral principles of business
law applied to congregational church that arbitrarily removed
board members and lacked bylaws); Favalora v. Sidaway, 995
So. 2d 1133 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) (neutral principles of agency law
applied in third party suit against Catholic Church). In none of
these 	examples 	do 	we 	have 	an 	intra-faith 	dispute 	within 	a
hierarchical church over who gets to keep the property of the local
church when the local church seeks to leave the mother-church.
Further, 	Appellants’ 	attempt 	at 	distinguishing 	New
Jerusalem is unpersuasive. Appellants’ amended complaint cedes
the two dispositive questions in New Jerusalem: (1) UMC is a
hierarchical denomination, and (2) Appellants are arms of that
hierarchy 	as 	local 	churches. 	Under 	New 	Jerusalem, 	the 	case

13
resolves 	itself. 	Dissatisfied 	with 	the 	current 	state 	of 	law,
Appellants ask us to innovate and apply the neutral principles of
law approach in a novel way. But opting to do so here would
require us to ignore binding precedent from our supreme court in
both Mills cases (which had quashed this Court’s decision applying
“neutral principles of law”), as well as our Court’s decision in New
Jerusalem, thus rendering the hierarchical deference approach a
legal nullity. Indeed, it would undermine the very reason that the
doctrine was developed in the first place: to respect that “those who
voluntarily unite themselves to a religious association do so with
an implied consent to the association’s manner of governance and
are bound to submit to it.” New Jerusalem, 147 So. 3d at 28 (citing
Watson, 80 U.S. at 728–29).
B.
In 	the 	alternative, 	Appellants 	make 	an 	as-applied
constitutional challenge to the hierarchical deference doctrine.
Appellants allege that the doctrine violates the First Amendment’s
Establishment Clause because it favors hierarchically structured
churches over congregational denominations.2
To begin, this doctrine was first articulated over one hundred
and fifty years ago by the United States Supreme Court. Watson,
80 U.S. at 727. It has been approved ever since. See, e.g., Our Lady
of Guadalupe Sch. v. Morrissey-Berru, 591 U.S. 732, 747 (2020);
Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and Sch. v. EEOC,
565 U.S. 171, 185–86 (2012); Jones, 443 U.S. at 602; Kedroff,
344 U.S. 	at 	115–16. 	Likewise, 	Florida 	courts 	maintain 	the
constitutionality of the doctrine. See Malicki, 814 So. 2d at 347;
Flynn, 221 So. 3d at 1247 (collecting cases). Appellants fail to
overcome the weight of this authority.
2 We note that, in their Initial Brief, Appellants raise other
constitutional challenges to the hierarchical deference approach.
Because Appellants failed to raise their equal protection and due
process challenges below, we decline to consider these unpreserved
arguments for the first time on appeal.

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Boiled down, Appellants’ challenge (although framed as an as-
applied challenge) amounts to arguing that the deference approach
grants hierarchical churches, generally, and UMC specifically,
special favor in the law. Establishment Clause challenges are
guided by “reference to historical practices and understandings.”
Kennedy v. Bremerton Sch. Dist., 597 U.S. 507, 535 (2022) (quoting
Town of Greece, N.Y. v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565, 566 (2014); Am.
Legion v. Am. Hum. Ass’n, 588 U.S. 29, 61 (2019) (same). Rather
than 	challenge 	the 	deference 	approach 	as 	historically 	wrong,
Appellants argue that the “blind deference” owed to hierarchical
and not congregational religious structures is an impermissible
privilege to hierarchical churches. We are not persuaded. Nor was
the Supreme Court over 70 years ago. See Kedroff, 344 U.S.
at 119-21.
At its core, the doctrine ensures that civil authorities do not
impinge on a religious hierarchy’s Free Exercise3 right to organize
and associate the way it chooses. That some religions, based on
their different beliefs, choose to organize congregationally does not
mean that the State must intrude on the right of hierarchical
institutions to have internal tribunals that resolve intra-church
disputes. See Watson, 80 U.S. at 729 (“But it would be a vain
consent and would lead to the total subversion of such religious
bodies, if any one aggrieved by one of their decisions could appeal
to the secular courts and have them reversed.”); Kedroff, 344 U.S.
at 120–21 (“Even in those cases when the property right follows as
an 	incident 	from 	decisions 	of 	the 	church 	custom 	or 	law 	on
ecclesiastical issues, the church rule controls. This under our
Constitution necessarily follows in order that there may be free
exercise of religion.”) (footnote omitted). In short, we are not
3 See Malicki, 814 So. 2d at 355 n.6 (Fla. 2002) (citations
omitted) (“Although the United States Supreme Court has often
discussed this principle in the context of the Free Exercise Clause,
. . . the United States Supreme Court has also referred to this
principle in the context of the Establishment Clause. . . . It is
apparent that the religious autonomy principle articulated by [the
Court] may implicate both the Free Exercise Clause and the
Establishment Clause.”).

15
persuaded by Appellants’ argument that the deference approach is
impermissibly favorable to hierarchical churches.
IV.
Because 	the 	hierarchical deference approach remains the
applicable standard governing Florida courts’ consideration of
property disputes arising from within hierarchical churches, we
affirm the trial court’s dismissal of Appellants’ claims. In light of
our affirmance, we need not reach the trial court’s alternative
ruling based on the “local action rule.”
That said, given the significance of the First Amendment
questions presented here, we certify the following question of great
public importance to the Florida Supreme Court:
1) WHEN ASKED TO ADJUDICATE STATE- LAW CLAIMS TO
RESOLVE INTRA -CHURCH PROPERTY DISPUTES INVOLVING
HIERARCHICAL CHURCHES, ARE FLORIDA COURTS STILL
GOVERNED BY THE HIERARCHICAL DEFERENCE APPROACH
OR MAY SUCH DISPUTES BE RESOLVED UNDER THE NEUTRAL
PRINCIPLES OF LAW APPROACH ?
A FFIRMED.
LEWIS and M.K. THOMAS, JJ. concur.
_____________________________
Not 	final 	until 	disposition 	of 	any 	timely 	and
authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
9.331.
_____________________________
David C. Gibbs III of the National Center for Life and Liberty,
Largo; 	Jeremy 	D. 	Bailie 	of 	Weber, 	Crabb 	& 	Wein, 	P.A., 	St.
Petersburg, for Appellants.

16
Frank E. Brown, Gregory A. Hearing, Sacha Dyson, Kevin M.
Sullivan 	of 	Bush 	Graziano 	Rice 	& 	Platter, 	P.A., 	Tampa, 	for
Appellees.