Fuimaono

This action for corporate dissolution constitutes the second chapter in a continuum of discord originating within the membership of the defendant Samoan Congregational Christian Church of Oceanside (Samoan Oceanside Church). The particular dispute erupted when the Board of Directors of the Samoan Oceanside Church discharged its minister (one of the plaintiffs herein) and hired another, thereby incurring official disapproval of higher ecclesiastical authority within the parent church body, as well as opposition from a minority of the membership of the Samoan Oceanside Church. The first unhappy chapter is related in Samoan Congregational etc. Church in U.S. v. Samoan Congregational etc. Church of Oceanside, ante, page 69 [ 135 Cal.Rptr. 793 ], We there held that the parent ecclesiastical body could not compel the forfeiture of assets of the Samoan Oceanside Church.

Plaintiffs in the case at bench are the discharged minister and a minority (constituting approximately 40 percent of the total membership), who side with the Reverend Talani Fuimaono in his refusal to acknowledge discharge by the Board of Directors of the defendant Samoan Oceanside Church, a California nonprofit…