Vendors awaiting payment from the Crystal Cathedral Ministries will see a check in the mail during Christmas week after a deal was struck in court Friday.
Attorneys for the Rev. Robert H. Schuller and the creditors in the case agreed to make payments to both Schuller and the creditors while the minister's appeal to a judge's ruling winds its way through court.
Schuller will get the $615,625 he was awarded last month by Judge Robert Kwan of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles. The Crystal Cathedral Ministries in Garden Grove will receive $500,000. And about 1,000 creditors will get their payments in full – about $12.7 million – but not the accumulated interest.
"It's a compromise by everybody to get the creditors paid," said Todd Ringstad, an attorney for the creditors.
After the payments are sent out, more than $2 million will be left in the pot, Ringstad said.
Schuller's notice of appeal, filed Tuesday, focuses on whether the court erred in how it interpreted an agreement between the minister and the cathedral. The claim is for about $5 million. Kwan called Schuller an employee and limited damages to one year's worth of compensation. Kwan rejected several other claims by Schuller and his family, and the Schullers are not appealing those portions of his ruling.
Carol Schuller Milner, Schuller's daughter and spokeswoman, said she is glad her parents will receive a payment but complained they are the only ones in the case who have to pay their own attorney fees, as attorneys for both the cathedral and the creditors have been paid through the bankruptcy case.
Meanwhile, attorneys and staffers planned to work late Friday to verify amounts and start stuffing envelopes with the checks, which should be arriving after Christmas, Ringstad said. "Creditors have been waiting a long time. We can work late into the night. The creditors deserve it," he said.
