Earlier this week it was announced that I believe it is 4 lawsuits including the James Huntsman suit claiming fraud and seeking return of their tithing donations are being combined into a single suit, and the suit is being moved to Utah federal district court, and assigned to Robert Shelby.

This gives the church home court advantage. OTOH, Shelby is the judge that made the famous same-sex marriage ruling where the Utah AG was so confident of winning, that he didn't even bother to ask for a stay if Utah lost, so same-sex marriage became legal immediately after the judge ruled, resulting in a blizzard of weddings happening starting that afternoon, until the state could get a stay in place to stop further weddings.

So Shelby is not an LDS lapdog. The reason given for moving the cases to Utah is that the church's law firm, and most of the witnesses are in Utah. In fact they are mostly within waling distance of the courthouse, not that I expect they will actually walk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._Shelby

We are seeing the hand of ghawd in action!

It is inspiring in its majesty!

It's like a rock, untouched by human hands or feet, taking me home, country road, long, long ago, on Judeah's Plain, etc.

The church wanted to be rich. Now it has rich people's problems.

Would be great to get a class action suit along with forcing the corporation to hand over a person's tithe records to help them in the lawsuit.

It’s going to be addressed!

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/04/18/tithing-lawsuits-four-states/

“In addition to asserting similar claims, the cases now grouped before Shelby also all seek to create a class of similarly situated plaintiffs who would join the case.”

S new temple recommend question.

Did you or have you ever sued the corporation?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, what we wouldn't give to have our extortion money...er, tithing...returned to us!

Just think of the ‘discovery’. Many cases are settled in part to avoid the discovery ending up in the public domain.

I would be interested to hear thoughts from those who have a better understanding than I do of how the legal process may play out—whatever the verdict or remedy may be.

The "Windows of Heaven" open both ways !

Or the church is true. God is giving tithe payers a payday, just like the church promises*.


* Terms and conditions apply

Now we know why the Corporation salted away all those billions of dollars:

so they could pay back tge tithing extorted from their faitful members.

Isn't nice to know that the leadership truly are prophets, seers and revelators?

;)

For grins, with the assistance of AI (Anthropic/Claude), I thought I'd estimate how much each member of the church might get if it had to distribute its assets evenly. I am using active adult members as a rough proxy for the number of individuals that wealth might get distributed to that might be roughly equivalent to a number that accounted for married vs. single, attending vs. not attending, alive or dead, and so forth - I did not do anything for this first go to account for those that might be full tithe payers or not). I used the estimates that AI provided. Remember, this is just for grins. Other estimates are welcomed and encouraged :-).

Total membership of the Church: Approximately 16.8 million members worldwide (as of August 2023). Estimated active membership: 30% to 50% of the total membership. For this calculation, we'll use the midpoint of 40%.

Estimated active members: 16.8 million × 0.4 = 6.72 million. Estimated percentage of children aged 0-17 among active members: 20-25%. For this calculation, we'll use the midpoint of 22.5%.

Now, let's subtract the estimated number of children aged 0-17 from the estimated active membership: Estimated children aged 0-17 among active members: 6.72 million × 0.225 = 1.512 million.
Estimated active adult members: 6.72 million - 1.512 million = 5.208 million.

Therefore, if the Mormon Church were to evenly distribute its estimated $150 billion in liquid assets (cash, stocks, bonds, etc) to its approximately 5.2 million active adult members, each member would receive around $28,846.15.

Now, let's look at a total liquidation scenario. Estimated wealth breakdown:
Financial assets (cash, stocks, bonds, etc.): $150 billion
Real estate holdings (temples, churches, land, etc.): $50-100 billion
Business holdings (ranches, farms, private companies, etc.): $30-50 billion

TSCC Estimated total wealth: $230-300 billion
For this calculation, let's use the midpoint of the estimated total wealth range: $265 billion.
Amount per member = $265,000,000,000 ÷ 5,200,000
Amount per member = $50,961.54 (rounded to the nearest cent).

Now, coming at this number another way. When I was in a bishopric over a decade ago, approximately 12-14 families accounted for almost all the tithes and offerings and also carried all of the major callings.

There are approximately 31,315 wards and branches worldwide (as of 2021). We'll assume an average of 13 tithe-paying households per ward (the midpoint of 12-14).

Scenario 1: Financial asset distribution ($150 billion)
Amount per household = $368,470.35 (rounded to the nearest cent)

Scenario 2: Full liquidation of all assets ($265 billion)
Amount per household = $651,186.16.

I think we should all send in our respective invoices.

(Again, this is just for sh_ts and giggles - perhaps with a bit of weeping thrown in for many of us. The estimate of potential claimants on the church wealth is very imperfect)

Excellent "back of the envelope" analysis. I think all your numbers are "close enough for government work".

One problem - if we all sent in invoices for our slice of the pie, it would completely dwarf the "12 to 14 families" that carry most of the load in any given ward. The full liquidation amount per family, if exMos are included, would be closer to $100K, not $651K.

Still, it'd be a lot better than a sharp stick in the eye. And there is zero chance it will ever happen.

So true. They snatch the widow's mite from her aged hand, with a hunger in their eyes that can never be sated, and spirit it away to drop into their horde, carefully kept hidden from the widow's eyes.

Unfortunately, this "back of the envelope" analysis is flawed, not even worthy of a grin.

In the first place, your analysis is not based upon the *damages* suffered by individual tithe payers, but rather on the wealth of the Church. Such damages vary considerably depending upon how much tithing was paid, and who wants it back (the class members). Even in a class action, the amount awarded must be related to the damage suffered by the class members. The wealth of the Church is completely irrelevant to the calculation. (Unless punitive damages are also awarded, based upon an intentional misrepresentation.)

A better "back of the envelope" starting point (but also extremely flawed) would be the average income of active adult members over an average tithe-paying period within the applicable statute of limitations; coupled with an assumption of 10 percent tithing payments. Given your estimated 5.2 million active members, and assuming this figure remains constant over a 4-year limitations period (for purposes of analysis ideally the same persons), we have 20.8 million total tithe-paying years. Now, further assuming that each such person earned on average $50,000 per year and paid 10 percent tithing, we have $5,000 X 20.8 = $104,000 of tithing paid on average per active person over a 4-year period.

Now, further assuming that liability was found (unlikely), along with an order requiring the Church to pay this money back, the total reimbursement would be $104,400 X 5.2M = $2,064,051,649.

Of course, none of the above takes into consideration that only a relatively small fraction of "active members" during this 4-year limitations period would demand or want any reimbursement. Suppose, for example, that of the total 28.8 million 4-year tithe payors, only 10 percent (Exmos?) demanded a reimbursement. In that case, the total reimbursement number is a 'measly' $206,405,164.

I think the Church could afford this. Moreover, given the fact that their liability exposure is otherwise minimal, I assume that the Church is not worried in the slightest about this lawsuit. It is a nuisance, nothing more. Of course, the negative PR is another matter, but that was not part of your analysis.

Please note the “… for sh_ts and giggles …” intent of my post and done without even a thought of looking through a legal lens of damages. Simply playing around with AI using the lens of liquidation of assets. Perhaps not worthy of a grin to some or many. But, being the nerd research scientist that I am, it was a nice diversion in a busy day where I was testing out the capabilities of several different AI models. I grinned, and if but one or a few others did as well then I’ll call it a win.

Getting Real, you bring up excellent points. Certainly much more in line with the reality of how lawsuits play out than what I offered up. And I would agree that negative PR, and I’ll add the possibility of drawing regulatory attention, are far more worrisome to TSCC than pesky lawsuits. Back taxes, penalties, and interest. Now that would be nice to see.