Gilmour v Coats

A religious purpose is not necessarily charitable. A trust for such a purpose must confer a benefit upon the public which the court can determine on admissible proof.

A court cannot establish public benefit merely by accepting a religious body's belief that private prayer, mortification or other spiritual exercises benefit the community. Nor is the indirect edification produced by the example of cloistered lives sufficiently tangible or proximate. Open eligibility to join a religious community does not supply the missing public benefit where the community's activities cannot otherwise be shown to have public utility.

A settlement directed its income to the purposes of a community of enclosed Carmelite nuns if those purposes were charitable. Otherwise, the fund was to pass to the Converts' Aid Society. The community undertook contemplation, prayer, penance and other spiritual exercises, but no teaching, nursing, relief of poverty or other external work.

Jenkins J held that the community's purposes were not charitable, and the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal. The Prioress appealed to the House of Lords. She contended that public benefit arose from the spiritual efficacy of the nuns' intercessory prayers, the edification produced by their example, and the availability of the contemplative life to Roman Catholic women with a vocation for it. The central issue was whether any of those matters supplied the public benefit required for legal charity.

1. The appeal was dismissed unanimously. Lord Simonds delivered the leading speech. Lord du Parcq and Lord Reid delivered concurring speeches, while Lord Normand and Lord Morton of Henryton agreed with the opinions delivered. The purposes of the enclosed Carmelite community were not charitable because the necessary public benefit had not been established.

2. Per Lord Simonds, the objects recognised by the preamble to the Statute of Elizabeth, together with objects within its spirit and intendment by analogy, governed the legal classification of charity. The established treatment of contemplative communities in Cocks v Manners, L.R. 12 Eq. 574, should not be displaced merely because additional evidence and arguments had been presented. A radical change of circumstances, proved by sufficient evidence, would be needed to justify such a departure.

3. Per Lord Simonds, Lord du Parcq and Lord Reid, the advancement of religion is generally charitable, but a religious purpose does not qualify without public benefit. The court itself must be able to determine that benefit. It cannot accept as proof a particular church's belief that private prayers and mortifications produce spiritual benefits, because their claimed special efficacy lies outside judicial proof. The law remains neutral between differing and potentially conflicting religious beliefs.

4. Per Lord Simonds and Lord Reid, the edification which others might derive from the nuns' example was too indirect, remote, intangible and imponderable. Treating such effects as sufficient would substantially remove the public-benefit requirement because almost every organised religious activity might produce some comparable influence.

5. Per Lord Simonds and Lord Reid, the community's openness to Roman Catholic women with the necessary vocation did not cure the absence of public benefit. The different categories of charity developed empirically and need not employ an identical measure of public benefit. An analogy with a publicly available educational benefit therefore could not establish that maintaining the contemplative community was charitable.

6. The House reserved the correctness of decisions recognising gifts for public or private Masses as charitable on other possible grounds. It rejected, however, the proposition that their charitable character could be established merely by judicial acceptance of religious doctrine concerning spiritual efficacy.

1. House of Lords: The Prioress's appeal was dismissed unanimously. The Court of Appeal's dismissal of her appeal therefore stood.
2. Court of Appeal: Dismissed the appeal from Jenkins J.
3. High Court, Chancery Division: Jenkins J in effect declared that the purposes of the Carmelite Priory were not charitable in the legal sense.