By Associated Press
Montgomery, AL – A state appeals court has decided that judges should stay out of a dispute between an Anniston minister and one of his church's deacons.
The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals unanimously overturned a $10,000 verdict that Deacon Edward Wood won in the trial of a defamation suit he filed against the Rev. Nimrod Q. Reynolds.
Reynolds is pastor of the Seventeenth Street Missionary Baptist Church in Anniston. Wood had accused the minister of defaming him during a sermon in January 2003.
In the decision Friday, Judge Bill Thompson wrote that courts are prohibited from getting into the kind of things that would be required to determine who was right. That includes deciding whether the deacon conformed to the moral standards of the Christian faith.
Wood says he is disappointed with the decision. He says the preacher mistreated him and shouldn't get away with it.
The minister and his attorney did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)