SD Supreme Court rules in favor of pastor in dispute with church over donation

South Dakota Supreme Court chamber

The South Dakota Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s ruling favoring a church in a dispute with a pastor over a $300,000 donation.

The case involves a gift allegedly made to Mario Torres, a pastor at Iglesia Pentecostal Fuente De Vida in Mitchell, according to the opinion released this week.

Iglesia Pentecostal Fuente De Vida was founded in Columbus, Nebraska in 2009. Torres became a pastor at the church and later founded a parish in Mitchell. Another church was also opened in Yankton.

In 2022, a parishioner made a major donation, writing three $300,000 checks. However the checks were written differently. One was made payable to "Iglesia Pentecostal Fuente De Vida" with the word "tithe" in the memo line and was given directly to the founder of the church. For the other two checks, the parishioner left the "pay to the order" line blank and wrote "mission" on the memo line. One check was given to Torres, the other was given to the pastor of the Yankton church. The parishioner did not discuss the intent of the check with Torres at the time.

Torres put the check in the church's bank account. However, court documents say Torres later learned the parishioner meant the check to go directly to Torres rather than the Church. Torres transferred money from the church’s account to his own.

The church sued Torres for conversion and breach of fiduciary duty. Torres sued on counterclaims of conversion and fraud.

A South Dakota circuit court ruled in the church's favor, finding all money in the Mitchell account belonged to the church or its parish, and that a "blank check is not an assignment of funds and is not sufficient delivery of a gift of money.” Torres appealed.

The Supreme Court ruled in Torres’ favor, arguing the lower court did not properly consider Torres’ fraud claim.

That claim relied in part on an affidavit written by the parishioner who made the donation which stated the parishioner told the founders of the church two of the $300,000 checks were specifically for the pastors of the Mitchell and Yankton parishes.

"Had it been my intent to donate $900,000 to the church, I would have written only one check. Instead, I wrote three separate checks," the affidavit stated. "The $300,000 check that I delivered to Mario Torres was for Mario Torres personally."

The justices said these statements include factual assertions which a jury could infer fraudulent intent by the church's leaders.

“This information and similar testimony from Vasquez’s deposition convince us that Torres has sufficiently established his fraud allegations, and they are not at all, as the church argues, bare insinuations or conclusory allegations,” the justices' opinion stated.

The justices remanded the case back to circuit court and ordered new proceedings.

Source