Lead Stories

A putative class action suit brought by a former employee of Wells Fargo Bank in Iowa, who claimed that the bank lacked statutory authority to use payroll deductions to process voluntary charitable contributions from employees, has been dismissed by a federal District Court.  The Court said that the deductions were permitted as a “lawful purpose accruing to the benefit of the employee[s].”  (Ferezy v. Wells Fargo Bank, S.D. IA, No. 4:09-cv-00455, 12/21/10.)

When a volunteer who ran a charity’s major annual fundraising event for five years decided that she no longer wanted to be involved with the charity, she and her husband sought to run a similar event, using the same name, for another charity in the same community.  The volunteers and the charity each filed to trademark the name of the event, and then commenced litigation seeking to prevent the other from using the name.  A federal District Court in Philadelphia has ruled that the charity is the proper owner of the name and issued a preliminary injunction to prevent the volunteers

For 48 years, the Archbishop of Hartford (CT) gave the income from a charitable trust to the Particular Council of the St. Vincent dePaul Society in Hartford.  When Mary Manning executed her will in the 1930s, she provided for a trust upon her death to pay income to relatives for life and then to five charities, including “the Roman Catholic Bishop of Hartford for use by him for the work of The St. Vincent dePaul Society.”

Membership is a church is not necessarily the same as being a member of a corporation with voting rights and the right to elect trustees or directors, a Court of Appeals in Ohio has said.  It has affirmed a trial court decision dismissing a claim by new trustees, recently “elected” by members of the church, seeking confirmation that they had ousted the old board.  (Revelation Spiritual Church of Christ v. Tussey, Ct. of App. OH, Twelth Dist., No.CA2010-03-058, 12/29/10.)

A nonprofit summer camp has no duty to protect a camper who was sexually assaulted in November while on a trip with a camp volunteer, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine has held.  It has affirmed a trial court decision granting summary judgment to dismiss the case.  (Gniadek v. Camp Sunshine at Sebago Lake, No. Cum-10-61, 1/13/11.)

We regularly feature answers to questions from readers in our “To the Point” column. The full list can be viewed here. Here are a few questions recently received from readers.

How can founder be protected?