Four years after a major court victory, investors suing the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart’s church over property are back to square one.
Four years ago this week, a jury in 19th Judicial District Court delivered what seemed at the time like a major victory for the local investor group that has been fighting Swaggart’s Family Worship Center Church since 2006 over a 60-acre parcel it is trying to acquire.
The verdict, which came after a three-day trial in early February 2016, cleared the way for Health Science Park to acquire the disputed property at the pre-Katrina price it had agreed on with FWCC. It also ordered the church, which had been fighting the sale, to pay $4.4 million in damages to the investors.
But the long-running case remains in limbo, the result of a June 2018 ruling by the First Circuit Court of Appeal overturning the verdict on a procedural technicality and sending the case back to the lower court for a new trial.
At the moment, the two sides are wading through procedural motions and awaiting a ruling on an appeal filed by FWCC of the trial court’s refusal to dismiss the case. If the First Circuit rules in favor of FWCC, HSP will try to take the case to the Supreme Court. If the First Circuit upholds the refusal to dismiss the case, the two sides will seek a new trial date, which, given busy court dockets, likely wouldn’t be until late this year or some time in 2021.
“We tried the case and won in February 2016,” HSP attorney Claude Reynaud says. “It is now February 2020. This has been 15 years of my career. When we started, Rev. Swaggart was 70. He’s 85 now. I just don’t get it.”
Reynaud’s client, Steve Jones, a partner in HSP, is also surprised the case continues to drag on without a resolution. But he says he and partner Terry Jones, no relation, are in it for the long haul.
“You just get so deep in it you can’t give up,” he says. “I’d love for it to be over but that’s where we are.”
The case is significant because the disputed parcel is one of the last, large undeveloped tracts in what has become the commercial center of East Baton Rouge Parish. Since HSP began trying to acquire the parcel from FWCC in early 2005, property values have increased significantly, mixed-use developments have gone up nearby and the area has become the hub of the rapidly growing Baton Rouge Health District.
HSP had plans for mixed-use and health care-related developments for the property. Following the 2016 verdict, the group was optimistic it would soon be moving forward with its vision for the parcel.
Steve Jones says he still fields interested calls from developers and hopes HSP will one day take title to the property.
But his patience is wearing thin.
“We still feel it’s worth it,” he says. “But there’s just nothing we can do right now.”
