Second Petition Filed to Enforce Federal Court Injunction Against Disassociated Diocese

The Diocese of South Carolina filed a Second Petition to Enforce the Injunction in federal court yesterday, again requesting enforcement of the Court’s Order and Opinion and Permanent Injunction issued on September 19, 2019. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel previously granted the majority of a similar petition filed on November 11, 2019 in an Order and Opinion issued on December 19, 2019 declaring that “Defendants may not subvert this Court’s clear Order … by continuing to co-opt the goodwill of the exact marks they are enjoined from using.” As noted by the Diocese of South Carolina in yesterday’s Petition: “Despite having already been found in contempt, defendants continue to violate the Injunction.”
 
This Second Petition again cites numerous examples that demonstrate continued violations of the Injunction by the disassociated diocese including continuing to assert that they were founded in 1785, using the name “Diocese of South Carolina,” and asserting that their first bishop is instead the fourteenth bishop of their newly-formed organization. Furthermore, exhibits in the filing show that the disassociated diocese has repeatedly claimed that Mark Lawrence, who was the XIV bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, was instead consecrated the fourteenth bishop of the newly-formed diocese in 2008, more than five years before it was created. As noted in the Petition, these statements intentionally cause “widespread public confusion as to who is the Historic Diocese and what it stands for.”
 
Additionally, it is noted that the disassociated diocese has continued to conduct business as the “Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina,” most recently demonstrated when the disassociated diocese applied for and received a federal loan under the Paycheck Protection Program using that business name.
 
The Second Petition to Enforce the Injunction references more than two dozen continued violations of the September 2019 Injunction, primarily on websites and social media platforms operated by the disassociated diocese or their members (view Exhibits filed with petition at this link).  These repeated violations have added to a continued confusion as to the identity of the two competing organizations. In summary, the Petition states: “Defendants continue to hold themselves out to be the Historic Diocese, using its marks and co-opting its pre-2012 history and goodwill dating back to the eighteenth century.”
 
In this new filing, the historic diocese asks the Court to again enforce the Injunction and “provide any further relief that the Court deems appropriate under its contempt powers, as well as the safe distance rule, in order to compel and ensure the Defendant’s future compliance.”
 
In the ruling on September 19, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel ruled in favor of The Episcopal Church in South Carolina (now recognized as The Diocese of South Carolina) and The Episcopal Church (TEC) on a trademark infringement and false advertising lawsuit filed in 2013, declaring that the group that disassociated from TEC in 2012 (and all affiliated churches) can no longer use the name “Diocese of South Carolina” nor use the “diocesan seal” or “Episcopal shield.” As clearly stated in Judge Gergel’s original opinion, “the Defendants have every right to disassociate from the TEC and pursue their doctrine and community as they see fit, yet they may not leave with the Plaintiffs' goodwill and marks generated over the course of over two centuries.”