By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Friday, September 19, 2025

U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant has denied a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit accusing Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, and its embattled founder, Robert Morris, of misappropriating church funds.

Mazzant denied the motion to dismiss the lawsuit Wednesday and granted the plaintiffs permission to file an amended complaint to include “additional causes of action and new parties.”

The lawsuit, filed in October 2024 by Gateway Church members Katherine Leach, Garry K. Leach, Mark Browder, Terri Browder and those similarly situated (former Gateway Church members and tithers), accuses Morris and Gateway Church of fraud, misrepresentation, and breach of contract for allegedly misappropriating tithes.

The church members allege that the defendants convinced them to give money to Gateway Church by stating that 15% of their donations would go toward global missions and Jewish ministry partners. Gateway Church and Morris also allegedly guaranteed that they could get a refund of their donations if they were dissatisfied with the way the church allocated their money.

In their lawsuit, the church members alleged that they have not been able to substantiate the church’s use of donations through transparent accounting. Both Gateway Church and Morris have denied those allegations and asked the court to dismiss their lawsuit with support from First Liberty Institute in an Amicus Curiae.

The defendants asked the court to dismiss the class action lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). They also argued that the fraud allegations should be dismissed because they fail the exacting pleading standards under Rule 9(b) and fail to state a viable claim under Rule 12(b)(6). Gateway Church and Morris also argued that the plaintiffs’ allegations of breach of contract and conspiracy to breach contract failed to state a viable claim under Rule 12(b)(6).

The court denied the 12(b)(1) motion without prejudice and stated that the defendants could refile their motion to dismiss on this point “once the record is better developed.”

Mazzant also denied the 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss because “Plaintiffs have stated plausible claims for relief” and “alleged sufficient facts to establish their fraud and breach of contract claims began to accrue at their discovery in 2024, when Plaintiffs experienced the lack of transparency or substantiation for Gateway’s use of Plaintiffs’ tithes.”

Morris, who founded Gateway Church in 2000, resigned in June 2024 amid an allegation that he sexually abused now 55-year-old Cindy Clemishire for years in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12, and continued with the abuse for 4.5 years after that. He was subsequently indicted on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child by a multi-county grand jury in Oklahoma in connection with that case earlier this year.

Morris previously announced his money-back guarantee on tithes during a 2022 sermon at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago about "The Principle of First" to help boost falling revenues amid the COVID-19 lockdowns.

"I don't want to exaggerate, but I'm sure thousands and thousands of people, and I'm sure it's multiplied, that have told me some way over the years through email, letters, whatever, 'this changed my life,'" Morris said, as seen in a YouTube clip from his message on tithing the first 10% of one's income.

"When I started giving the first 10 percent to God, it changed everything. And here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to just challenge you. I've done this with our church. I've told our church on multiple occasions, I've said to them, if you try it for one year, if you are not fully satisfied, at the end of that year, I'll give you your money back," Morris added. "With 22 years in the church, no one's ever asked for their money back."