Two weeks ago, a Harris County jury cleared a Texas Buddhist organization on a claim that it had defrauded a member of its congregation in connection with the sale of church property.
Kien Van Dang, the plaintiff, was a follower and contributor to the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), a Texas religious nonprofit. He accused the church of soliciting funds from him and from others for the purchase of a pagoda in California. He maintained that the church subsequently sold the property without properly accounting for the funds.
Dang sued for $1 million. And on Jan. 17, the Houston jury decided in a 30-minute deliberation that he should take nothing.
That might well be the end of the story: a tidy, take-nothing victory for the lawyers representing UBCV, Jarod Stewart and Hector Chavez of Smyser Kaplan & Veselka.
Except that it wasn’t and isn’t.
The fraud case is just one part of a broader — and stranger — case now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit involving not only the California pagoda purchased by the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, but over the very use of its name.
Some background might help here.
The plaintiff in the Fifth Circuit case is The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (Giao Hoi Phat Giao Viet Nam Thong Nhat), an unincorporated religious organization founded in Vietnam, but now headquartered in France. The group says its patriarch, Thich Quang Do, is currently under house arrest in Vietnam.
The defendant is The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (Giao Hoi Phat Giao Viet Nam Thong Nhat), the non-profit incorporated in Texas. Both have the same name, and both are popularly known by the same initials, UBCV. And according to the unincorporated church, that’s one problem.
The other problem is money. According to court records UBCV, the unincorporated church, raised $2.3 million for a variety of charitable purposes, including the purchase of the California pagoda. The church says it transferred the funds to the UBCV Texas, the incorporated church, in order to purchase the California real estate and for distribution to earthquake victims in Nepal.
The leader of UBCV Texas, and the focus of UBCV’s continuing lawsuits is Dang Pham, a Buddhist monk also known by the religious name of Thich Giac Dang. According to court records, Dang — who emigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam — was appointed by the unincorporated church to the Texas post in June 2014 when the group’s previous leader resigned.
Although the California property was purchased for $1.25 million, UBCV claims that Dang and a friend “misappropriated and misused” a portion of the money and demanded an accounting — the same kind of accounting demanded by Kien Van Dang in the Harris County fraud trial that concluded last month.
UBCV first filed suit in California. Then UBCV filed in Harris County, but the suit was dropped for lack of prosecution. But UBCV added claims that UBCV Texas had infringed on its trademark and filed yet again in a Houston federal court.
In March 2018, UBCV’s claims of breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, conspiracy and unjust enrichment were dismissed in Houston by U.S. District Judge David Hittner court in the Southern District of Texas for lack of jurisdiction. Judge Hittner later granted summary judgment on UBCV Texas’ trademark claims, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to pass a seven-factor test to prove the trademark had achieved “secondary meaning.” And it is UBCV’s appeal of the trademarks issues that are now before the Fifth Circuit.
In a brief filed just last week, Stewart and Chavez argue that the lawsuit is still about the money, and that the claims of trademark infringement were designed to get the accounting issue into federal court. Moreover, claims by UBCV that they are synonymous with the worldwide Buddhist movement were never explored by the court. When UBCV Texas asked to depose a corporate representative, no one showed. When UBCV Texas served UBCV written discovery, no verified answers were returned.
But what of the money? That’s where the jury trial that concluded two weeks ago comes in.
In addition to his claim of fraud, Kien Van Dang had argued that he was a legal member of the temple, and therefore entitled to inspect the books and records, including information about others’ contributions to the temple.
At trial, Dang Pham and UBCV Texas argued at trial that he was not a legal member, that the funds had been accounted for through a volunteer committee that tracked down all the donors and that Kien Van Dang could not show that he had been harmed. The only request to review the books and records was the lawsuit he filed in 2015.
Throughout the two days of evidence, said Stewart, the most powerful moment of the trial came on the last day when Pham, dressed in the traditional Buddhist saffron robe, testified before the jury.
At the end of his testimony, Stewart said he asked Pham if he wanted to say anything to the plaintiff.
“He turned to (Kien Van) Dang and said, ‘I wish it did not come to this and wish you had reached out before. I apologize if you misunderstood the difference between a religious follower and a legal member… no one’s denied you of being a religious follower,'” Stewart recalled.
Stewart said several jurors said that moment tipped their vote in favor of Pham.
“We are very pleased with the jury’s verdict,” Stewart told The Texas Lawbook. “Our client sincerely hopes that this decision will provide closure to a long-running schism within the Vietnamese Buddhist community, and allow monks, nuns and followers to move forward in peace and harmony.”
Kien Van Dang’s lawyers at trial, Pete Mai and John Na, did not respond to a request for comment.