Trial Opens in Melodyland Clash Over Divinity School

In the courtroom, it sounded like a tale of big business power plays and corporate intrigue, but the trial that opened this week centered on a dispute between rivals over control of a divinity school.

At the center of the legal tug of war is Melodyland School of Theology, spawned by the success of Melodyland church in Anaheim, headed by the Rev. Ralph Wilkerson.

A group that “drifted away” from the church leadership--in the words of their lawyer--claimed Tuesday that Wilkerson and others conspired last year to stack the school’s board of directors with the pastor’s followers.

The Wilkerson faction allegedly posted armed guards and changed the locks at the school, then located on the site of a group of Melodyland buildings near Disneyland, blocking access by faculty and students in May, 1985.

Wilkerson and the church deny any wrongdoing and are demanding $2 million from the school directors for past rent, utilities, insurance and worker’s compensation payments.

As the trial got under way before Orange County Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ryan, much of the opening statements by lawyers centered on assets, rental agreements and the validity of past elections of the school’s board of directors. Even the name is in dispute, with both sides vying for the right to use it.

Jack Golden, lawyer for the school officials who say Wilkerson locked them out, said they were forced to relocate the seminary about two miles away on West Ball Road. That site also houses Melodyland High School and Anaheim Christian College--both of which began on the Melodyland property.

Ryan, who is hearing the case without a jury, last fall issued an injunction that allowed faculty and students access to the old seminary library at Melodyland for specified hours each week. She temporarily stripped Wilkerson of control of many of the school’s assets.

The boards of directors of the two corporations running the church and the school overlapped for many years. But in 1984, the church “was having financial problems and began to pressure the school to pay for the facilities it used,” Golden said.

Golden said he would prove that the church gave the school the right to use facilities at the Melodyland complex “rent free” through 1987. The original lawsuit asked for $1,000 for each day access to those facilities was blocked and for $6 million in punitive damages.