The Nation - News from March 10, 1989

A federal appeals court in Boston, rejecting a fundamentalist church’s First Amendment claims, said the church must refund $5.5 million of the $6.6 million donated by an heiress due to “undue influence” by the pastor. “Those who run TBS (The Bible Speaks church) may freely exercise their religion, but they cannot use the cloak of religion to exert undue influence of a non-religious nature with impunity,” the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously. The court upheld most of a lower-court ruling in favor of Elizabeth Dayton Dovydenas, of Lenox, Mass., who sought to recover money donated to the church, which was formerly based in the ritzy western Massachusetts town.