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In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court today gave some teeth to the “ministerial exception” that, in essence, precludes some employees of religious institutions from suing them under federal discrimination laws.

I’ve discussed the exception in various posts over the years here and here.  Its been supported in the Second Circuit and by the Connecticut Supreme Court, but until now, the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t spoken directly on the issue.  The SCOTUS blog has already posted its recap of the entire case here.

SCOTUS: Broad ministerial exception applies

My quick reaction to the decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC (download here), is that the notion of a “ministerial exception” being recognized by the Supreme Court isn’t that much of a surprise.  To find otherwise, as the Court stated in its opinion, would be untenable and go against all of the Courts of Appeals.  “We cannot accept the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers.”

Indeed, the court concludes:

We agree that there is such a ministerial exception. The members of a religious group put their faith in the hands of their ministers. Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.

What is more notable is that there appears to be a broad definition of who is a “minister”.   (And, to state the obvious, rabbis and the like are obviously included). The court took pains to point out that it hasn’t adopted “a rigid formula for deciding when an employee qualifies as a minister.”  But it concluded that “given all the circumstances of her employment”, it applies here.Continue Reading BREAKING: U.S. Supreme Court Supports Fairly Broad “Ministerial Exception” to Anti-Discrimination Laws

Over the last 24 hours, there’s been a lot written about the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes.  Frankly, all of them are starting to say the same thing:  The decision is going to hamper all class-action discrimination cases going forward.

But that statement tends to simplify the decision a bit too much.  In my view, what the decision stands for is that it will be increasingly unlikely that the mega-class action (the one that covers an entire company) will be able to proceed without a very specific and tangible practice or policy that the plaintiffs can point too. 

What types of things are we talking about? Well, it would be unlikely, but suppose a company had a mandatory retirement age of 60 but without a legitimate basis for doing so. In essence, it was a company-wide practice of discriminating against older workers.  That type of class action will probably survive.
Continue Reading Wal-Mart v. Dukes: What The Class-Action Decision Really Means for Employers

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision,  yesterday held that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state laws that discuss or limit arbitration agreements on the availability of class action arbitration procedures. 

The case, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion (download here) isn’t an employment law case (it concerns whether AT&T should have charged consumers sales tax…

Time and again, pundits suggest that the U.S. Supreme Court now is among the most conservative in decades and, by extension, pro-business.

If that’s the case, they’re going to be awfully surprised with today’s 8-0 ruling in Staub v. Proctor Hospital (download here) in which the court broadened the methods that an employee can use…

The United States Supreme Court today, in an 8-0 decision (Justice Kagan recused herself), ruled that Title VII retaliation provisions include protection to those people who have suffered an adverse employment action and are in the same "zone of interest" as another employee who filed a charge.  

What does that mean? Good question.