Overlawyered » churches http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:28:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 “Bystander Claims ‘Swoon and Fall’ Injuries at Church” http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/bystander-claims-swoon-and-fall-injuries-at-church/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/bystander-claims-swoon-and-fall-injuries-at-church/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:54:20 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=27039 East St. Louis: “In yet another ’swoon and fall’ case against a church, an Illinois woman claims she was injured during a church service when a parishioner who was receiving the ’spirit’ fell backward, knocking several other worshippers into her.” Most “slain in the Spirit” suits are filed either by the worshiper who loses consciousness and falls or by a designated “catcher”; this one is on behalf of an injured bystander [Matthew Heller, On Point News; earlier here, here, here] “New tort: Gottvertrunkenism” [@Sam_Schulman]

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/bystander-claims-swoon-and-fall-injuries-at-church/feed/ 2 “Religious employers must cover pill, Feds say” http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/religious-employers-must-cover-pill-feds-say/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/religious-employers-must-cover-pill-feds-say/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:06:52 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=27070 HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius said giving church-related sponsors of health plans an additional year to comply with the contraceptive mandate “strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.” Really? If religious freedom is in fact at stake, what kind of “balance” is attained if it gets a one-year reprieve but then expires? A balance between current freedom of institutional conscience and future lack of same? [AP] On the Obama administration’s remarkably unfriendly stance toward self-governance by church institutions, see my coverage of this term’s Hosanna-Tabor Supreme Court case. More: Michael Greve has a must-read analysis predicting the directive’s downfall in court, and pointing out the procedural dodginess of this and much other regulation implementing the ACA. And Thom Lambert asks: “What if the Government Ordered the Human Rights Campaign to Cover Conversion Therapy for Gays?”

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/religious-employers-must-cover-pill-feds-say/feed/ 27 Religious liberty wins 9-0 at SCOTUS in “ministerial exception” case http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/religious-liberty-wins-9-0-at-scotus-in-ministerial-exception-case/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/religious-liberty-wins-9-0-at-scotus-in-ministerial-exception-case/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:44:16 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26780 And I do a little happy dance at Cato at Liberty (earlier)(& Damon Root/Reason, Allahpundit; my background piece in October).

More: Hans Bader points out, regarding the Obama DoJ’s “let them rely on free association” argument, that “free-association defenses, unlike religious-freedom defenses, are generally losers, as the Supreme Court’s Hishon, Jaycees, and New York State Club Association decisions illustrate.” And: “The extreme position taken by the Obama Justice Department in the Hosanna-Tabor case is a reflection of ideologically-based hiring.”

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/religious-liberty-wins-9-0-at-scotus-in-ministerial-exception-case/feed/ 13 Synagogue youth workers wage-hour suit http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/synagogue-youth-workers-wage-hour-suit/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/synagogue-youth-workers-wage-hour-suit/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:43:59 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25988 “A youth group adviser from California has brought a class-action suit against her employer, the Orthodox Union. …Her complaint states that in addition to her ‘nine-to-five’ duties of teaching classes, meeting with students and co-workers, cooking for holiday meals and running programs, she also had students at her house on Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays. She had to make herself constantly available to students and their parents by phone and e-mail, and she worked around the clock while chaperoning Shabbatons and trips.” Overtime was not paid for these duties as legally required, her lawyer says. [JTA via Helfand/Prawfs; related on scope of "ministerial exception" in employment law]

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/synagogue-youth-workers-wage-hour-suit/feed/ 6 Soup kitchen as “retail food establishment” http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/soup-kitchen-as-retail-food-establishment/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/soup-kitchen-as-retail-food-establishment/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:21:24 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25829 In Morristown, N.J., the city’s decision to reclassify a church-sponsored soup kitchen as a “retail food establishment” is expected to drive up the kitchen’s operating costs by at least $150,000 a year, in part by prohibiting volunteers from bringing in home-prepared food or even aprons. [William McGurn, Wall Street Journal] We’ve covered the issue periodically over the years.

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/soup-kitchen-as-retail-food-establishment/feed/ 11 Janitors and the ministerial exception http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/janitors-and-the-ministerial-exception/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/janitors-and-the-ministerial-exception/#comments Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:16:45 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25559 In discussions of the “ministerial exception,” which limits the scope of employment lawsuits against churches and related groups over some jobs important to their mission, the typical example often given of a job not covered by the exception is janitor. Eve Tushnet wonders why that is (scroll to “custodian of souls”; earlier on the pending Supreme Court case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC).

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/janitors-and-the-ministerial-exception/feed/ 3 EEOC vs. the ministerial exception http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/eeoc-vs-the-ministerial-exception/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/eeoc-vs-the-ministerial-exception/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:29:56 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=24975 Argued yesterday before the Supreme Court, the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC pits the quasi-religion of employment discrimination law against organized religion of every other sort. Guess which side the Obama administration comes down on? I explain in a new op-ed at The Daily Caller. More background: Christopher Lund (Wayne State), “In Defense of the Ministerial Exception”, North Carolina Law Review/SSRN. And per Rick Garnett at NRO “Bench Memos,” the Court’s justices in their questioning yesterday did not appear friendly toward the idea of overthrowing the exception (& followup). According to the L.A. Times and other reporting, Justice Kagan described the Justice Department’s position as “amazing.” More: Marcia McCormick, Workplace Prof (linking to transcript of oral argument, PDF)(& welcome Damon Root/Reason “Hit and Run” readers).

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/eeoc-vs-the-ministerial-exception/feed/ 2 July 28 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/july-28-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/july-28-roundup-2/#comments Thu, 28 Jul 2011 05:45:21 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=24029
  • Wild hypotheticals were grist for complaint: “Widener law professor cleared of harassment charges” [NLJ, earlier here, here, here]
  • Ninth Circuit: Facebook didn’t breach user’s right to accommodation of mental disability [Volokh]
  • House Judiciary hearing on litigation and economic prosperity [Wajert]
  • “University of Michigan to stop worrying about lawsuits, start releasing orphan works” [Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing]
  • PBS airs “The Story Behind Wacky Warning Labels” [Bob Dorigo Jones]
  • Fifth Circuit “candy cane” religion-in-schools case controversial among conservatives [David Upham, NR Bench Memos]
  • Great moments in public records law [Cleveland Plain Dealer, earlier related]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/july-28-roundup-2/feed/ 4     July 25 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/july-25-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/july-25-roundup-2/#comments Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:16:01 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=24008
  • Nice going, sex offender registries [Brian Dickerson, Detroit Free Press] And I’m quoted in a syndicated column by Lenore Skenazy (and thence by Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing) on the registries’ tendency to sweep in much wider circles of offender than many advocates originally had in mind. More: a tale of child-abuse registries [Skenazy];
  • New York Times exposes scandal: businessman holds seat in Congress. Quick, replace him with another lawyer! [Ribstein]
  • Race separation’s unlawful for school attendance. So why’s it OK for school voting districts? [Quin Hillyer, Mobile Press-Register]
  • Speech and property rights in peril: “Fear of a Muslim America” [Cathy Young, Reason]
  • Before blaming bank dereg for “Too Big To Fail,” read this [Mark Calabria, Cato at Liberty]
  • After fatal one-car crash, drunk driver’s survivors sue popular Irish bar that served him [NJLRA; Trenton, N.J.]
  • Scotland: Thief wants victim prosecuted for keeping gun in her house [Daily Record]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/july-25-roundup-2/feed/ 5     “IHOP v. IHOP, Round 2″ http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/ihop-v-ihop-round-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/ihop-v-ihop-round-2/#comments Mon, 13 Jun 2011 20:40:37 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=23381 Lowering the Bar has more on the trademark dispute between the International House of Pancakes (restaurant) and the International House of Prayer (church)(earlier).

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