(Photo: Worship band at Gateway Church Southlake campus. The church campus was constructed for $86 million and opened in 2010.)
By Barry Bowen and Pete Evans
Two class action lawsuits filed in 2024 are creating an opportunity to produce court precedents for suing churches engaged in alleged financial fraud.
In July, Mormon donors merged five cases filed against the Mormon Church into one class action lawsuit.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, “A total of nine plaintiffs — so far — are alleging that senior church leaders and their money managers lied for decades about using member tithing donations solely for charitable causes while instead investing the cash in a multibillion-dollar ‘slush fund’ at Ensign Peak Advisors, the faith’s investment arm.”
The Mormon class action case follows another groundbreaking lawsuit. In 2021, Mormon Church donor James Huntsman sued the church for $5 million, alleging that church tithes were used to build the City Mall Center in Salt Lake City.
On September 25th, Huntsman’s case was heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which has not yet rendered a decision.
In early October, four Gateway Church donors filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Gateway Global Ministries was spending less than $3 million on missions when the total should have exceeded $15 million annually in recent years. Robert Morris and other church leadership had claimed 15% of money given to the church would be spent on missions.
Precedents created by the Mormon lawsuits may determine the outcome of the Gateway class action lawsuit.
