Augsburg Seminary Hennepin County Minnesota District Court Action – 1897

In February of 1897, the Competing Trustees commenced a legal action in Hennepin County, Minnesota against the Oftedal Trustees, claiming that the Competing Trustees were the proper trustees of Augsburg Seminary, rather than the Oftedal Trustees.[1]

Such action was also a quo warranto legal proceeding, the purpose of which was to determine those persons who were entitled to the corporate office of trustee, and thus control of Augsburg Seminary.[2]

The Augsburg Seminary Hennepin County District Court action was the first quo warranto legal proceeding to ever be adjudicated in Minnesota. [3]

The Oftedal Trustees believed that even though the Augsburg Seminary corporation may have been improperly organized, it was nevertheless a de facto corporation, with de facto officers—although there was no de facto office of trustee in control of the Augsburg Seminary corporation pursuant to the Curative Act of 1877, which could have been recognized in quo warranto legal proceedings to determine the proper persons entitled to such an office:

“It would be a misapplication of terms to call one an officer who holds no office. “An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is, in legal contemplation, as inoperative as if it had never been passed.” [4]

The Competing Trustees for Augsburg Seminary in the 1897 Hennepin County District Court action were represented by attorneys Emanuel Cohen and Andreas Ueland, while the Oftedal Trustees were represented by Fred T. Merritt, Orville Rinehart, and the Brooks and Hendrix law firm.[5]

Attorney Emanuel Cohen settled in Minneapolis in 1885, and had a distinguished legal career.

He was the author of legislation outlawing restrictive covenants in Minnesota real estate transactions, which at the time were used extensively to discriminate against Jews.

Upon his death in 1920 without spouse or descendants, Emanuel Cohen left the bulk of his estate to a youth center for the education of Jewish children, and health and wellness services for the Jewish community.

In 1924, the Minneapolis Jewish community named the Jewish center for Emanuel Cohen, and in 1963, the Emanuel Cohen Center moved to St. Louis Park – where it became known as the Jewish Community Center of Greater Minneapolis.[6]

Attorney Andreas Ueland arrived in America in 1871 as a teenager, and became a Minnesota lawyer, and a judge.

He was the son of a Norwegian Haugean peasant farmer, Ole Gabriel Ueland, who was a leader of the bønder peasants in the Norwegian parliament.[7]

Attorney Fred T. Merritt obtained his law degree from the University of Wisconsin, and practiced law in Minneapolis until 1900, when he moved to Alaska to serve as the U.S. Commissioner and Deputy Clerk of the U.S. District Court in Nome and St. Michael.

Over the course of his career, he worked as an attorney for the Union Pacific Railway, and served as the president of the Seattle Bar Association.

According to the Oftedal Trustees, the primary issue in the Hennepin County District Court action was whether the original incorporators of the Augsburg Seminary Corporation had lost their membership in the corporation, and been replaced by the members of the Conference.^[8]

After a lengthy trial, on October 18, 1897, the Hennepin County District Court ruled in favor of the Competing Trustees for Augsburg Seminary who had been elected by the United Church, declaring that they, and not the Oftedal Trustees, were the proper trustees of Augsburg Seminary.^[9]

According to church historian E. Clifford Nelson, District Court Judge Russell had determined that the Augsburg Seminary Corporation had not been created by its incorporators, but by the Conference itself—and since the Conference had merged with the United Church—the Conference assumed the rights and privileges of the actual incorporators.[10]

The Hennepin County District Court determined as a finding of fact that:

by the action taken by said Conference at its annual meetings in 1880 and 1890, the members of said Conference with the knowledge, assent, cooperation and the acquiescence of the signers of said articles of incorporation, intended to confer, and did confer, upon all the members of the United Church the same rights in, to and concerning said seminary corporation as the members of said Conference had theretofore.”[11]

The Hennepin County District Court found as conclusions of law that the members of the Augsburg Seminary corporation had been the members of the Conference from the time of its incorporation, until the organization of the United Church in 1890,[12]

that the members of the Augsburg Seminary corporation since the organization of the United Church in 1890 were the members of the United Church, and that purported amendments to the Articles of Incorporation of the Augsburg Seminary corporation in 1892 and 1895 expanding the number of trustees to 35 were void.[13]

The Hennepin County District Court further declared that:

The members of the conference did not lose their membership and their rights in the corporation by going into the union. The Conference simply changed its name and associated its members with other Norwegian Lutheran ministers and congregations.
Pursuant to the Hennepin County District Court decision, the United Church would have acquired complete legal control over the Augsburg Seminary corporation, because the Competing Trustees elected for the Augsburg Seminary corporation at the 1896 convention of the United Church, rather than the Oftedal Trustees, were properly in charge of the Augsburg Seminary corporation.[14]

Believing the lower court to be mistaken with respect to its findings of fact and conclusions of law, the Oftedal Trustees promptly appealed the decision of the Hennepin County District Court to the Minnesota Supreme Court.[15]

Notes

[1] Minneapolis Tribune, February 7, 1897, page 18.

[2] Minneapolis Tribune, April 10, 1897, page 12.

[3] Minneapolis Tribune, December 31, 1898, page 4.

[4] Brief for Appellant at 137, State Ex Rel. Brun et al. v. Oftedal, et al., 72 Minn. 498, 75 N.W. 692 (1898), Minnesota Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 72 Minn. 590, page 137; Appellant’s Points and Authorities, quoting Norton v. Shelby County 118 U. S. 425, 442.

[5] Minneapolis Tribune, March 25, 1897, page 5. State ex rel. Brun v. Oftedal, 72 Minn. 498, 75 N.W. 692 Minn. 1898, June 09, 1898.

[6] https://www.sabesjcc.org/about/our-history/

[7] Nelson and Fevold, Lutheran Church Among Norwegian-Americans, 2:50, footnote 53, citing C. G. O. Hansen, My Minneapolis (Minneapolis: privately published, 1956), p. 81; Andreas Veland, Recollections of an Immigrant (New York: Minton, Belch & Co., 1929).

[8] Brief for Appellant at 80, State Ex Rel. Brun et al. v. Oftedal, et al., 72 Minn. 498, 75 N.W. 692 (1898), Minnesota Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 72 Minn. 590. Appellant’s Points and Authorities.

[9] Minneapolis Tribune, October 19, 1897, page 4. Chrislock, From Fjord to Freeway, page 79.

[10] Nelson and Fevold, Lutheran Church Among Norwegian-Americans, 2:75.

[11] Brief for Appellant pages 100-101, State Ex Rel. Brun et al. v. Oftedal, et al., 72 Minn. 498, 75 N.W. 692 (1898), Minnesota Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 72 Minn. 590; Appellant’s Points and Authorities. Chrislock, From Fjord to Freeway, page 79.

[12] Brief for Appellant at 75, State Ex Rel. Brun et al. v. Oftedal, et al., 72 Minn. 498, 75 N.W. 692 (1898), Minnesota Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 72 Minn. 590; Appellant’s Statement of Facts.

[13] Brief for Appellant at 75, State Ex Rel. Brun et al. v. Oftedal, et al., 72 Minn. 498, 75 N.W. 692 (1898), Minnesota Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 72 Minn. 590; Appellant’s Statement of Facts. Chrislock, From Fjord to Freeway, page 79.

[14] Chrislock, From Fjord to Freeway, page 79.

[15] Minneapolis Tribune, May 7, 1898, page 5.