Opinion
April 25, 1950.
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Duval County, Miles W. Lewis, J.
Fleming, Jones, Scott Botts, Warren L. Jones and Francis P. Hamilton, Jacksonville, for Florida Nat. Bank of Jacksonville.
Osborne, Copp Markham, H.P. Osborne, H.P. Osborne, Jr., Jacksonville, for Atlantic Nat. Bank of Jacksonville, as Trustee, petitioners.
Francis P. Conroy, Clarence G. Ashby, John W. Donahoo, Chester Bedell, and Herbert Lamson, Jacksonville, for respondents.
St. John's Parish of Jacksonville was designated a beneficiary under (1) the will of William B. Drew, (2) the will of Frances E. Taylor and (3) the will of Mary Packer Cummings. The Atlantic National Bank of Jacksonville was named trustee to execute the trust provided for the Parish in the will of Frances E. Taylor, and the Florida National Bank of Jacksonville was named to execute the trust for the Parish in the will of William B. Drew.
St. John's Parish and the Diocese desire to execute a contract whereby St. John's Church at Jacksonville will be the Cathedral Church of the Diocese. The execution of said contract involves the use of the assets of which the Parish is beneficiary under the wills heretofore specified. Appropriate resolutions were adopted looking to the execution of such a contract as soon as it is judicially determined that the Parish and the Diocese are lawfully authorized to execute and perform such a contract without forfeiting or prejudicing any right, title or interest of the Parish in respect to any of its funds, properties, endowments or assets provided in said wills.
The respondents as complainants instituted this suit by exhibiting their bill of complaint in the Circuit Court as authorized by Chapter 87, Florida Statutes 1941, F.S.A., better known as the Declaratory Judgments Act, wherein they pray for a declaratory decree adjudicating the question of whether or not they are legally authorized to enter into the proposed contract, and should they do so, would they forfeit their charter or divert funds and assets from the uses and purposes intended by any will referred to herein. The bill also prays that the court will instruct the plaintiff as to its powers and duties in the administration of funds coming into its hands in the event the contract is executed. Motions to dismiss the bill of complaint were overruled and appeal by certiorari under Rule 34 of the rules of this Court was prosecuted.
The point suggested for determination is whether or not on the basis of facts alleged in the bill of complaint the Court has general equity or statutory jurisdiction to grant the relief prayed for.
The petitioners contend that this question requires a negative answer because the points raised by the motions to dismiss present (1) no justiciable issues, or facts in esse out of which a controversy may arise, (2) The alleged right and relief sought are predicated on conditions that may never arise in that they involve future contingencies. (3) That the plaintiffs seek an advisory opinion with respect to a hypothetical case that is beyond the constitutional or statutory jurisdiction of the Circuit Court to answer.
We do not think there is any merit to this contention. We pretermit any reference to or consideration of the general equity jurisdiction of the Circuit Court because we are convinced that Chapter 87, Florida Statutes 1941, F.S.A., was designed to grant relief in cases like this and that the point in review is concluded by the doctrine announced in Sheldon v. Powell, 99 Fla. 782, 128 So. 258; Ready v. Safeway Rock Co., 157 Fla. 27, 24 So.2d 808 and Sample v. Ward, 156 Fla. 210, 23 So.2d 81 in which the scope of Chapter 87 was expounded.
A brief summary of the bill of complaint fortifies this conclusion. It alleges that the assets devised by the wills brought in question were for charitable purposes, that if the contract is entered into the trustee under the will of William B. Drew would immediately refrain from making further payments to the Parish, pending a judicial determination of the validity of said contract, that the Parish is in doubt of its right to enter into said contract or that if it did so, whether or not it would forfeit any rights, funds, properties or endowments under any one or all of said wills.
It is not as if two strangers had met and decided to contract with each other but before doing so sought the advice of the court about the effect of their agreement. Here a church is entering a contract considered by it to be in furtherance of the very objects for which it exists and is confronted with the question whether or not it will risk losing some of the income devoted to its purpose if it does so. So the real question presented goes (1) to the right of the church under the trusts and (2) its authority under its charter.
The purpose urged in the bill of complaint for making the Jacksonville church the Cathedral Church of the Diocese abundantly supports the prayer for relief. Paraphrased, it announces that the Parish Church is further to guarantee the objects of the diocese as a sanctuary in which the clergy and the laity may be constantly reminded a man's utter futility without God, and that the danger incident to erecting an iron curtain between man and God is infinitely more menacing than the one alleged to have been erected between the East and the West. It reminds us that we need spiritual understanding to appraise ourselves at just what we are and that human dignity and personal liberty will cease to endure if we neglect to educate the youth and the adults of the land in these christian concepts. This is particularly true in a social system like ours where every principle of our democratic theory is rooted in the ethics of Jesus. The only hope of a society in which social power is shared by all is education that will make it sensitive to the common as well as the individual welfare.
The petition for certiorari is denied.
ADAMS, C.J., and THOMAS and ROBERTS, JJ., concur.