A Ninth Circuit Court decision (western u.s. region including west coast if I am remembering correctly) of eleven judges unanimously sided with the Church in Huntsman tithing lawsuit. This is a very liberal court not known as conservatives. Unanimous 9th Circuit panel dismisses Huntsman tithing lawsuit.

https://www.ksl.com/article/51242565/unanimous-9th-circuit-panel-dismisses-huntsman-tithing-lawsuit

From the Desert News article which quotes the court decision:
“No reasonable juror could conclude that the church misrepresented the source of funds for the City Creek project,” six judges said in Friday’s majority ruling. “Although the church stated that no tithing funds would be used to fund City Creek, it also clarified that earnings on invested reserve funds would be used.

“The church had long explained that the sources of the reserve funds include tithing funds. Huntsman has not presented evidence that the church did anything other than what it said it would do.”

what’s nasty is how they have changed the doctrine and ground the face of the poor and shamed them for caring for their own families and done it through a twisted view of the principle of sacrifice… all while they hoard billions upon billions of dollar.

Even the BoM preaches about money and finances, and yet look at how blatantly corrupt the LDS leaders have become.

“If you have enough money in this world”, you can hire lawyers to argue anything you want in court, and they will even do it with a straight face.

I went to the Church Newsroom page to see what they’d say about the ruling. They kicked things off with the Widow’s Mite. After having studied that story in the scriptures more, I realized the church does not understand what that story means. It was not meant to elevate the giving of a poor woman, when you look at the previous section of the gospel it was meant to highlight the corrupt nature of religion and how they were spending money on a temple that would be destroy, that their works of a temple tax were all for naught.

It's a sign that America protects a certain class of stupid. You can successfully sue for damages caused by other kinds of stupidity. Just not the religious kind.

Huntsman may have accepted a "burning in his bosom" as justification for forking over tithing money, then changed his mind. It's not a scam if you scam yourself.

He would have needed a slam dunk if he was getting anywhere, which he didn't have.

Like the actor who portrays Satan in the endowment movie said: "You can buy anything in this world with money."

TSCC has 150 lawyers to protect it. They aren't about to let anyone win a lawsuit against them.

But can you expect anything less from an organization that was built upon fraud, deceit, adultery, black magic, and...dare I say...murder? (MMM)

"fraud, deceit, adultery, black magic"

Thanks for bringing this up. Practice of black magic often ends in insanity or death, which adds an interesting dimension to Carthage. Marrying all of those teenagers in his last few years should have been a clear sign he was off the rails.

Apologists will say the church is okay now, that it magically turned good. No, it just got better at hiding its true nature. It is set up to hijack your personal autonomy. To squander your birthright, so to speak, to build malls. Because it can.

Here is a complete copy of the ruling.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/116891225.html

This case was decided by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, applying California law. I have been a California attorney for about 35 years and understand the law as pertaining to civil fraud claims intimately.

Having read the case in its entirety, I can tell you that without question it was correctly decided under California law. There was no bias in favor of the Church, or religion generally, or prejudice against Huntsman in the ruling, although there were some critical comments of Huntsman's motivations in the concurring opinions.

The main issue concerned whether the Church misrepresented the facts when it stated (repeatedly) that tithing funds would not be used when developing the City Creek Center Project. The facts showed that the Church did not use the *principal* of any tithing funds, but only the *investment income* derived from such funds, as such income was generated from a common fund of both tithing and other monetary assets. The statements made by the Church that Huntsman deemed fraudulent consistently stated that the money would not come from tithing, but from investment income, which included income from tithing investments.

In short, the majority decision was decided strictly by the required elements of the law of fraud, and not by the application of any religious, or First Amendment principles or protections. Concurring opinions followed which *did* raise such issues, including criticism of Huntsman himself for allegedly seeking to vent is anti-Mormonism through baseless litigation. But don't get any of these concurring opinions confused with the majority decision itself.

The outcome of this case was predictable--not because of pro-Church or pro-religion bias, but because it was arguably frivolous under existing law.

If so, what does the Courts ruling Polygamy illegal show?