Did you ever imagine that your right to carry a firearm in a botanical garden operated by a private nonprofit on governmentally owned land depends on whether the land arrangement is a lease or a usufruct?

A deed signed by a former pastor of a church purporting to transfer church property to an individual is invalid when the pastor had no authority to sign the deed and the board did not approve the sale as required by the bylaws, a Pennsylvania appellate court has affirmed.  It has ruled that the deed in question was void and that a separate deed conveying the property to another religious center was valid and controlling.

An appellate court in Michigan has reversed a trial court decision granting summary judgment to the former president of a family foundation who was being sued by his brother, a former director of the foundation, for breach of fiduciary duty.  The trial court had said that the plaintiff brother had failed to show evidence of a breach of duty.  The Court of Appeals said he hadn’t been able to show evidence because the trial court had granted a protective order against discovery of the evidence he needed to show.

A fiscal sponsor is not liable for breach of contract with its sponsored organization and has no fiduciary duty to the organization when the sponsored program goes bad, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has affirmed.  It has denied claims of the sponsored organization and granted summary judgment to the community foundation that had reluctantly agreed to take on the project.

An organization claiming to be a “church” exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Tax Code is not entitled to a ruling that it is not a private foundation under section 509 when it has not filed an application for exemption for recognition of church status.  The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has agreed with the Internal Revenue Service and dismissed the case.