Temple Lot Suit

The Temple Lot Case (also known as the Temple Lot Suit and formally known as The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, complainant, v. the Church of Christ at Independence, Missouri) was a United States legal case in the 1890s which addressed legal ownership of the Temple Lot, a significant parcel of land in the Latter Day Saint movement. In the case, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church) claimed legal title of the land and asked the court to order the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) to cease its occupation of the property. The RLDS Church won the case at trial, but the decision was reversed on appeal.

The Temple Lot is a small parcel of land in Independence, Missouri. In the early 1830s, the lot was designated by Joseph Smith, Jr. as the site for a proposed temple for a prophesied city of "Zion" or "New Jerusalem". In 1831, Latter Day Saint Bishop Edward Partridge purchased the Temple Lot from Jones H. Flournoy and Clara Flournoy on behalf of Smith's Latter Day Saint church. Partridge held the property in trust for the church.

The proposed temple was never built on the site and the Latter Day Saints were ultimately driven out of Missouri. After this, legal title to the property became a matter of dispute, with three separate theories of who inherited legal title to the property. The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) (the "Hedrickites") ultimately found themselves in possession of the most prominent 2.5-acre (10,000 m²) portion of the 63.5 acres (257,000 m²) Bishop Partridge had purchased in 1831. On April 7, 1884, a Hedrickite conference authorized construction of a "house of worship" on the property, and on April 6, 1887, a building committee was formed and authorized by conference vote to immediately begin construction of the building. At their October 6, 1889 conference, the Hedrickites noted completion of the small church building on the northeast corner of the property, but no building was constructed on the exact site believed to have been designated for the temple—the central part of the sparsely-wooded field.

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