A private foundation in Texas may not sue the University of Alabama in a Texas court for breach of contract for a scholarship program being operated in Alabama, an appellate court in Texas has held. It has reversed a trial court decision allowing the case to proceed.
Alumni trustees of Penn State University may recover the litigation costs of their successful suit to gain access to “source materials” of the Freeh Report on the Jerry Sandusky situation, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has held.
The federal District Court in the District of Columbia has ruled that a group of “individuals sharing mutual concerns” about Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have no standing to sue the Treasury Department to force it to investigate about 200 501(c)(3) organizations and revoke their exemptions where appropriate. The District Court followed a long line of cases denying standing where the activity complained of has only a tenuous relationship to the injury complained about and where the remedy requested would not redress the injury.
A church in San Francisco has lost a court battle to reclaim control over two housing subsidiaries, one of which is more than a half century old, that it thought it controlled but didn’t. An appellate court in California has affirmed a trial court decision holding that the church’s claim is barred by the statute of limitations but even if it weren’t, the governing documents of the “subsidiaries” don’t give the church any role in governance.
A court appointed receiver for a nonprofit community action program may claim breach of duty by two former officers and demand that the organization’s D & O insurance carrier make payment. A federal District Court in Rhode Island, reviewing conflicting cases in other jurisdictions, has held that the claim is not excluded by the “insured-versus-insured” exception contained in the policy.
Two children of the founders of a family private foundation don’t seem to see eye-to-eye on the operation of the foundation they now lead following the death of their parents. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has recently affirmed a District Court decision denying relief to the son who sought to overturn actions taken by his sister. (See Nonprofit Issues, 1/16.)
