When it appears to a district court of this state that, before 1907, real property was conveyed to a bishop, or a right reverend bishop, or an archbishop, or a most reverend archbishop of any religious denomination or church in an official capacity as bishop and to successors in office, or as trustee under an oral or written trust for an incorporated or unincorporated body, in this state, whether the grantee is designated as trustee in the conveyance or not, and the consideration for it was paid by the body, and at the time of the conveyance the bishop’s religious denomination or church had its central or supreme government in a foreign country and was the country’s state church, and later the country’s form of government was changed and the religious denomination or church ceased to be its state church, and the record title to the real property is in the name of the grantee or a successor in office, and the body, whether incorporated or not, possesses the real property and has possessed it for ten or more years under a claim of ownership, the district court shall, in an action brought by the body, make a decree vesting the title, both legal and equitable, to the real property in the body. An unincorporated body must incorporate under Minnesota law before the commencement of the action.

Terms Used In Minnesota Statutes 315.39

  • Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. Source: U.S. Courts
  • Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
  • state: extends to and includes the District of Columbia and the several territories. See Minnesota Statutes 645.44
  • Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.

Actions under this section must be brought in the same way as actions to quiet title to real property in this state, as provided in chapters 557 to 561.