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Several thousand Southern Baptists will bypass Fort Worth next year to attend the annual Empower Evangelism Conference. Following nearly six months of negotiations, the city of Fort Worth refused to accommodate the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention in setting a limit to the amount of liability the convention must assume when leasing facilities. While the Charitable Immunity Act caps liability exposure for non-profit organizations like the SBTC, the city of Fort Worth requires all entities covered by the act that lease its facilities to relinquish this protection and accept unlimited risk.
“The city of Fort Worth is the only entity that has ever made the waiver of the protection of the Charitable Immunity Act as a requirement for a lease,” said Shelby Sharpe, general counsel for the SBTC. “It would seem that the city of Fort Worth is way out of step with the rest of the municipalities and counties in Texas with whom the SBTC has licensed facilities.”
Sharpe said the SBTC has entered similar contracts with city governments in Arlington, Houston, Lubbock and Corpus Christi since the founding of the convention a decade ago.
Sharpe explained the reasoning of the 1987 act, stating, “The Texas Legislature determined it was in the best interest of the citizens of Texas to place a cap on liability exposure a charitable organization might incur in conducting its activities.”
He said the Charitable Immunity Act was designed to prevent these organizations “from being wiped out of existence by one lawsuit,” capping damages in a maximum amount of $500,000 for each person, $1 million for single occurrence of bodily injury or death and $100,000 for each single occurrence for injury to or destruction of property.
In seeking to satisfy the concerns of the city of Fort Worth, the SBTC offered to purchase additional insurance of up to $6 million. Sharpe told an attorney for the city of Fort Worth that setting an agreed upon amount for insurance liability “should accomplish the city’s purpose and at the same time provide a cap on damages consistent with the purpose of the act to protect the viability of the SBTC.”
Fort Worth Public Events Director Kirk Slaughter responded on Feb. 26, stating, “The city of Fort Worth respectfully declines to cap damages at a specific amount. The city would like to host the SBTC Convention and will do so with the Charitable Immunity language as proposed by the city,” he added in reference to the required waiver of the right allowed under Texas law.
SBTC Chief Financial Officer Joe Davis expressed his frustration over what he found to be an unreasonable demand. “It appears that there is no insured amount which the city of Fort Worth feels would adequately protect its constituents,” Davis said, referring to the demand for unlimited liability.
In a letter dated Dec. 20, 2007, Assistant City Attorney Maleshia B. Farmer told the SBTC the city of Fort Worth would not remove paragraph 29 of its license agreement. The language requires that charitable organizations entitled to any immunity or limitation of liability under the provisions of the Charitable Immunity and Liability Act of 1987 “expressly waives its right to assert or plead defensively any such immunity or limitation of liability.”
While Sharpe asked the city of Fort Worth to justify its demand, Farmer simply stated that “the provision has been included in all license agreements for use of city facilities for a number of years.”
Another area of disagreement involved a contract provision requiring the leasing entity to be liable for any negligence on the part of the city of Fort Worth.
“I have never encountered another entity that feels justified in asking me to be liable for their negligence,” Davis said. “It appears a standard practice of the city of Fort Worth to over reach most of its customers by requiring the customer to be liable for the city’s negligence.”
After some debate, Davis said the city of Fort Worth agreed to change the contract with the SBTC to make the city liable for its own negligence.
With Fort Worth officials refusing to budge on their charitable immunity clause, SBTC Evangelism Director Don Cass expressed his disappointment at “the unacceptable policy of the city of Fort Worth toward the more than 2,000 churches that make up the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention” regarding use of municipal facilities. “Our plans were to take our annual Empower Evangelism Conference to the Tarrant County Convention Center for the next five to seven years,” Cass said.
“It is unfortunate that we were unable to reach an agreement on the terms of the license event for the 2009 convention,” said Fort Worth City Manager Dale A. Fisseler in a letter dated April 14. “After careful and thorough consideration, a business decision was made that the revision would not offer sufficient protection for the city and its constituents, our taxpayers. The standard clause is included in all of our license agreements, our insurance coverage is based upon its inclusion, and we do not feel comfortable making such a change for any single user group,” Fisseler wrote.
Sharpe told Slaughter the SBTC would hold its conference at another location after the city refused to agree on a limit to liability.
“Considering the number of people who would be renting hotel and motel space, that would eat in restaurants and buy other services and products, this is a substantial loss to the citizens of Fort Worth,” wrote Sharpe, noting the economic loss would be magnified by the SBTC not coming to Fort Worth for the five to seven years as planned.
Cass added, “Texas Baptists love to come to Fort Worth and would have enjoyed a long and mutually beneficial relationship between our convention of churches and the city. What could have been a wonderful partnership is no longer a possibility.”
Cass said he appreciates First Baptist Church of Euless for their willingness to host the conference again in 2009 with a date set for Feb. 16-18.
