Editor’s note: This story has been updated since it was first published to include more detail about the case.
A local investor group that has been battling the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart’s Family Worship Center Church over a 60-acre parcel on the church campus for 12 years is asking the First Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider an appellate ruling from earlier this summer that dealt a major blow to their case.
In mid-June, a three-judge panel overturned a February 2016 judgment giving the investor group, Health Science Park, the right to acquire the Swaggart property—one of the last large, undeveloped tracts of land along Bluebonnet Boulevard—for the pre-Hurricane Katrina price the two sides had agreed upon in mid-2005.
The 2016 judgment also ordered Swaggart to pay HSP $4.4 million in damages plus interest.
But in its June ruling, the First Circuit panel argued that the trial court erred in the way it handled a controversial piece of evidence dealing with the purchase option on the property and sent the case back to the 19th Judicial District Court for a new trial.
HSP attorney Claude Reynaud has asked the appeals court for a rehearing on the matter. He declines to comment except to say, “we’ve asked for a rehearing because we believe the premise on which the ruling is based is faulty.”
The case dates back to 2005, when HSP began negotiating with FWCC over the property, which it hoped to develop into a medical complex along the bustling corridor. The group signed a purchase agreement with the ministry before Hurricane Katrina to acquire the land for $6.7 million. After the storm—and subsequent surge in property values—the ministry tried to back out of the deal. The two sides have been fighting ever since.
In early 2016, it looked like the matter might finally be settled, when a 19th Judicial District Court ruled in favor of HSP after a three-day jury trial.
After Swaggart’s attorneys were unsuccessful in their attempt to get a new trial, they brought their case to the First Circuit, which heard the appeal last August.
Given that it took more than 10 months for the First Circuit ruling, there’s no telling how long it will be before the appellate court rules on Reynaud’s request for a rehearing.
What is fairly likely is that the losing side will drag the case out still longer by bringing the matter to the Louisiana Supreme Court.
