July | 2020 | judicialsupport

Archive for the month “July, 2020”

Back in October 2015 I wrote about the inauguration of the Abington Templeton Foundation (see here). The project is now underway (see here) and I will be posting our writing here.

Check out the latest piece entitled “Discipleship in Matthew and Apologetics XVI–The Resurrection.”

Joe Arcieri Songs: Lady Luck

Joe Arcieri is a friend of mine who I worked with for many years during my ten years working for Acme Markets. Joe, when not stocking milk or saving lives as a nurse, is an excellent guitar player. I have had the privilege, from time to time, of (badly) plunking my bass guitar with Joe as he melts a face or two with a great solo.

As great musicians do, Joe has written some of his own songs and keeps a soundcloud site to post them. When I have opportunity, I will post his music here as well.

Here is his composition called “Lady Luck” which you can find here.

Here are the links to the previously posted songs by Joe:

Posted in Joe Arcieri Songs and tagged 02, 04, 08, 10, 11, 12, 15, 2, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2010, 21, 28, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, acute, alan, alan white, album, allentown, arcieri, art, arthur, asia, atlantic, attorney, august, avant, band, benoit, benoit david, bill bruford, billy sherwood, birthday, black, blockbuster, book, box, buggles, camden, carl, carl palmer, casino, center, chris squire, city, classic, collins, concert, court, daid, darby, day, dean, dream, ELP, emerson, erythroid, fairegrounds, february, frampton, garde, geoff downes, groupe, guitar, hall, harum, heaven & earth, jersey, joe, john, john wetton, jon anderson, jon davison, judge, july, kansas, lake, larry, law, lawyer, legacy, leukemia, line, line-up, live, magic, magnification, mann, mix, music, musical, new, octber, oliver, open, orchestra, ownward, palmer, parsons, pennsylvania, peter, phil, philadelphia, philadephia, porcupine, present, procol, prog, program, progressive, project, renaissance, review, rick, rick wakeman, rite, rock, roger, scale, school, september, set, show, sing, song, songs, sony, source, spectrum, spring, stage, steve howe, street, styx, summit, summut, syd, syd arthur, symphonic, symphony, tempus fugit, theater, tickets, tom. brislin, tour, tower, track, tree, trevor horn, trevor rabin, trop, tropicana, tweeter, up, upper, upper darby, volto, wakeman, warm, yes, yesday, YesSource, yestival

29 Jul 2020

2 Comments

Law360’s Weekly Verdict: Legal Lions & Lambs

By Aebra Coe in Law360 on September 19, 2019 found here.

Law360 (September 19, 2019, 3:25 PM EDT) — Akerman snagged a spot among the week’s legal lions after a jury awarded its model clients nearly $1 million for a swingers club’s unauthorized use of their images, while Hanshaw Burink was among the legal lambs with a loss at the Sixth Circuit for a client fired after golfing during medical leave.

Legal Lions

Akerman LLP clinched the top spot on this week’s legal lions list after a Miami federal jury on Monday ruled that a swingers club should pay the law firm’s clients, 32 models, a total of $892,500 in damages for using the women’s images to promote sex parties without getting their permission or paying them. The models are represented by Naim S. Surgeon, Lawrence D. Silverman, Akivia P. Bassaragh and Dianne O. Fischer of Akerman.

Next up on this week’s lions list are Hogan Lovells and King & Spalding LLP. A D.C. federal judge ruled in favor of their hospital clients Tuesday and found that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services exceeded its authority last year when it cut payments by hundreds of millions of dollars for outpatient hospital care that’s not actually delivered on hospital campuses. The hospitals are represented by Catherine Emily Stetson and Susan Margaret Cook of Hogan Lovells and Mark Polston, Chris Kenny, Joel McElvain and Nikesh Jindal from King & Spalding.

Dechert LLP earned a spot on the list Friday after a California federal jury cleared client Quest Diagnostics of allegations it stole Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s trade secrets in a bid to develop a competing diagnostic blood test. Quest is represented by Jonathan D. Loeb, Christopher S. Ruhland, Blake Greene and Anna Do of Dechert.

Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart LLP secured a lion’s win for client Steak ‘n Shake Friday when the Sixth Circuit reversed a lower court decision, finding the restaurant chain didn’t have to notify a worker of her right to continued health coverage after she suffered an on-the-job knee injury. Steak ‘n Shake is represented by Eric P. Mathisen of Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart.

Last up on this week’s lions list are Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Coffey Burlington PL. The law firms’ client, tennis superstar Naomi Osaka, has prevailed over a former coach suing her for 20% of everything she’s worth after a Florida state judge said the contract in question was clearly unenforceable because Osaka was 15 when her father signed it. Osaka is represented by Paul J. Schwiep of Coffey Burlington and Alex Spiro and Luke Nikas of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.

Legal Lambs

Kicking off this week’s legal lambs list is Hanshaw Burink PLC. The law firm’s client, a former mine worker who was fired after being caught golfing on days for which he took intermittent medical leave for shoulder pain, could not convince the Sixth Circuit to revive his retaliation suit, with the court saying Friday he was justifiably ousted for abusing his Family and Medical Leave Act rights. LaBelle is represented by Sandra Hanshaw Burink of Hanshaw Burink.

Next up on the lambs list are Lane Powell PC and Landman Corsi Ballaine & Ford. A federal jury awarded $16.75 million to three people in the first trial over a major Amtrak train derailment near DuPont, Washington, in 2017. Amtrak is represented by Andrew Yates of Lane Powell and John Bonventre of Landman Corsi Ballaine & Ford.

Bodman PLC ended up on the list Friday after the Federal Circuit affirmed that steakhouses at a Michigan hotel and New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport have confusingly similar names, rejecting the Inn at St. John’s argument that it was wrongly denied a trademark because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office disregarded its own earlier decision. Inn at St. John’s LLC is represented by Justin Bagdady, Susan Kornfield and Michael Serra of Bodman.

The Third Circuit refused Tuesday to revive an American Airlines flight attendant’s suit claiming she was harassed by male colleagues in a Facebook group, saying the “crude” comments were not severe enough to trigger protection under federal workplace discrimination law, landing attendant Laura Medlin’s attorneys at the Law Office of Faye Riva Cohen PC on this week’s legal lambs list. Medlin is represented by Faye Riva Cohen and Brian M. Doyle of the Law Office of Faye Riva Cohen.

Last up on this week’s lambs list is Prince Lobel Tye LLP. The Federal Circuit delivered a likely end to a patent suit Uniloc brought against gaming company Big Fish Games over technology in data processing systems, refusing Friday to resurrect two patents a lower court found covered only an abstract idea. Uniloc is represented by James Foster, Paul Hayes and Aaron Jacobs of Prince Lobel Tye.

–Additional reporting by Cara Salvatore, Vin Gurrieri, Tiffany Hu, Adam Lidgett, Matthew Bultman, Nathan Hale, Craig Clough, Lauren Berg, Emily Brill and Ryan Boysen. Editing by Philip Shea.

Posted in Featuring the Firm! and tagged abuse, age, arithmetic, attorney, body, cartoon, case, child, children, civil, class, client, cohen, comic, compensation, court, cushing, custody, dance, defendant, discrimination, divorce, employment, estate, evangelist, family, father, faye, full, funny, gender, guardianship, heir, high, james, john, joint, judge, landlord, law, lawyer, lease, legal, living, man, marriage, mother, nathan, no, office, parent, partial, pennsylvania, philadelphia, physical, plaintiff, probabt, prom, promposal, protected, protection, race, rent, rights, riva, rudolph, saint, school, shapes, shared, st., states, strip, SUE, suit, support, tenant, toughlawyerlady, trust, understands, unemployment, united, video, visitation, will, woman, youtube

28 Jul 2020

Office Quarterly Newsletter: Employment Law Edition 7/20

My firm, the Law Office of Faye Riva Cohen, P.C., issues a newsletter from time to time, and, accordingly, we sent one out on July 21, 2020. Our newsletter updates and informs our readers as to what articles we have published, what seminars we have led, what awards we have received, and what is going on with any other happening at our Firm.

In this newsletter we offer an update on Employment Law and Faye Riva Cohen’s appearance on WWDB-AM 860 radio program “Pain and Wellness Hour with Sonny Banks.”

If you wish to read our newsletter, you can do so here. Thanks and be on the look out for our next newsletter!

Posted in Office Quarterly Newsletter and tagged adam, attorney, bernick, case, cohen, constant, contacts, court, cushing, esquire, faye, inc, incorporated, james, judge, law, lawyer, legal, newsletter, office, offices, pennsylvania, philadelphia, quarterly, research, riva, shah, shan, SUE, suit | Leave a comment

27 Jul 2020

2nd Circuit: Free Speech and Free Exercise Claims of Christian Adoption Agency Can Move Forward

This is from religionclause.blogspot.com which you can find here:

In New Hope Family Services, Inc. v. Poole, (2d Cir., July 21, 2020), the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, in an 84-page opinion, reversed the dismissal of free exercise and free speech claims brought by a Christian adoption agency. The court summarized the issues:

New Hope Family Services, Inc., is a voluntary, privately funded Christian ministry devoted to providing adoption services and authorized to do so in the State of New York for more than 50 years. New Hope professes that, consistent with its religious beliefs, it cannot recommend adoptions by unmarried or same-sex couples. It does not itself disapprove such couples; rather, it refers them to other adoption agencies. In 2018, the State’s Office of Children and Family Services (“OCFS”) informed New Hope that its policy respecting unmarried and same-sex couples violates the antidiscrimination mandate of N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 18, § 421.3(d). OCFS advised New Hope that it either had to change its policy or close its operation.

In reversing and remanding the case to the district court, the 2nd Circuit said in part as to plaintiff’s free exercise claim:

[W]e conclude that the pleadings give rise to a sufficient “suspicion” of religious animosity to warrant “pause” for discovery before dismissing New Hope’s claim as implausible.

In connection with plaintiff’s free speech claim, the court said:

New Hope asserts that, based on its religious beliefs about marriage and family, it does not believe and, therefore, cannot state, that adoption by unmarried or same-sex couples would ever be in the best interests of a child. It charges OCFS with requiring it to say just that—or to close down its voluntary, privately funded adoption ministry….

AP reports on the decision.

You can learn more about this issue here.

Posted in Reblog: Religion Clause and tagged 14, absences, absent, accommodation, accomodation, ACLU, act, action, adventists, affordable, agunah, amendment, american, anglican, ant-semitic, anti, anti-semitism, appeal, argument, Arizona, army, assembly, assignment, associates, association, atheist, Athletes, attorney, authority, bale, baptist, batchelder, beard, beliefs, beth, bible, birdville, bloomingburg, board, bookstore, Borough, budget, burks, burwell, california, Calvary, Candy, care, case, catholic, chabad, chancery, child, children, christian, church, circuit, civil, clause, coach, cohen, college, colorado, COLTS, commissioner, connecticut, contraception, contraceptive, corrections, council, county, court, courthouse, coverage, cranston, cross, cushing, dame, day, decision, delaware, department, dietary, din, director, disaster, discrimination, disease, district, divorce, drinking, east, election, elementary, employee, employment, endorse, endorsement, enroll, ERISA, establishment, exception, exercise, exervise, exodus, faye, federal, film, first, flaum, florida, foundation, fourteenth, frat, fraternity, free, freedom, friday, gay, Georgia, get, Gilbert, good, greece, groom, habit, habits, hair, halakhic, harassment, hashanah, hasidic, hasidim, health, helena, HHS, high, hobbs, hobby, hofstra, hold, holds, holiday, holt, homeland, homosexual, hospital, house, humanism, humanist, husband, ill, illinois, illness, immigrant, immunization, immunize, independent, injunction, injunctions, innoculate, innoculation, island, israel, james, jefferson, jew, jewish, journal, judge, Justice, ketubah, kidnap, kidnapped, Killingsworth, kingswood, kippur, klein, kosher, lacawana, LaKisya, lamm, law, lawsuit, lawyer, legal, lesbian, lobby, m, mall, mandate, marriage, marry, maryland, maulers, mchugh, meal, medical, meet, meetings, Mendieta, Michael, middle, military, ministerial, ministry, minor, mislabel, mississippi, missoula, mitzvah, modern, montana, more, moses, movie, naitonality, Natalia, nebraska, new, newsweek, noah, northwestern, notre, nun, oath, obamacare, object, objection, off, office, opinion, oral, ordinance, orthodox, PA, parent, pellegrino, pennsylvania, pentecostal, pharoh, philadelphia, plague, plan, policies, policy, pray, prayer, prayers, preliminary, presbyterian, prison, prisoner, profesor, property, rabbi, read, reading, reasonablem endorsement, red, reed, regulations, relationship, relgious, relief, religion, religious, remove, research, restoration, rfra, rhode, ridley, rights, riva, rosh, ROTC, rule, satmar, saturday, scholarship, school, scott, secular, security, semitic, semitism, service, seventh, sex, sexual, shalom, sign, sikh, singh, sit, southgate, speech, springs, stand, stat, state, states, student, SUE, suit, sullivan, supreme, suuplements, swear, sworn, teacher, team, terminated, termination, test, texas, theater, third, thomas, title, township, traditional, traffic, transit, turban, underage, united, universeity, university, vaccinate, vaccination, VII, village, visa, volleyball, volunteer, volunteers, welcime, wheaton, wife, wilmington, work, yom, york, young, youth | Leave a comment

24 Jul 2020

84 Comments

Templeton Project: Discipleship in Matthew and Apologetics XV–The Sign of the Cross

Back in October 2015 I wrote about the inauguration of the Abington Templeton Foundation (see here). The project is now underway (see here) and I will be posting our writing here.

Check out the latest piece entitled “Discipleship in Matthew and Apologetics XV–The Sign of the Cross.”

3rd Circ. Grounds Harassment Suit Against American Airlines

The Third Circuit refused Tuesday to revive an American Airlines flight attendant’s suit claiming she was harassed by male colleagues in a Facebook group, saying the “crude” comments were not severe enough to trigger protection under federal workplace discrimination law.

A three-judge panel affirmed a lower court’s decision handing American Airlines summary judgment
on Laura Medlin’s Title VII hostile work environment claim over comments and posts in a Facebook
group named “Wingnuts.”

While the panel called the comments “crude and thoughtless,” the judges said Title VII doesn’t
protect workers from ordinary workplace troubles. The panel said that Medlin fell short of showing
any of the comments actually changed a condition of her employment and noted that she didn’t
actually work with the attendants who were behind the postings.

“Additionally, there is no evidence that American’s failure to respond to Medlin’s complaints and
perform an investigation changed the terms of her employment,” the panel said. Medlin had alleged that comments in the Facebook group — including a crude name she believed was aimed at her, gender epithets and threats — caused her to suffer from a hostile work environment. She herself was not a member of the group, and American Airlines had nothing to do with the group, according to court documents. Medlin said she took the issue to the airline’s human resources department, but an investigation wasn’t done because the complaint was “lost in the shuffle.”

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission gave her a right-to-sue letter, and Medlin did so
in 2016, claiming hostile work environment and discrimination, according to court documents.
American Airlines defeated both claims at the lower court. Medlin appealed only the loss of her
hostile work environment allegation. She argued on appeal that a jury might have been able to find the postings were aimed at her gender and that the lower court was wrong to say that she didn’t prove the conduct was pervasive or severe.

Faye Riva Cohen, one of Medlin’s attorneys, told Law360 on Tuesday that she wasn’t planning at this
time to ask for rehearing, but did say that social media postings and bullying have a severe impact
on the real world. “We feel that courts have not caught up with the reality of social media and its role in workplace issues,” she said. “And also depending on the type of industry, for example in the airline industry where flight attendants do not have regular shifts and don’t even meet each other on a regular basis, they use social media as the prevalent way that they can communicate with each other. So they talk about their workplace. They talk about union issues. They talk about exchanging ideas.”

American Airlines told Law360 that it was happy with the decision.

Circuit Judges Michael Chagares, Kent A. Jordan and Luis Felipe Restrepo sat on the panel. Medlin is represented by Faye Riva Cohen and Brian M. Doyle of the Law Office of Faye Riva Cohen, PC. American Airlines is represented by Daniel E. Farrington of Fisher Phillips. The case is Laura Medlin v. American Airlines, case number 18-3117, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

By Adam Lidgett and published in Law360 on September 17, 2019 and can be found here.

21 Jul 2020

1 Comment

Supreme Court Spotlight: Obamacare – Victory or Defeat?

In 2010 Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (hereinafter referred to as “Act”), which was championed by President Barack Obama and is commonly referred to as “Obamacare.” The Act was created in an effort to increase the number of Americans covered by health insurance and decrease the costs associated with health care coverage. On June 28, 2012, in an eagerly awaited decision, the U.S. Supreme Court (“Supreme Court”) ruled on the provisions contained in the Act.

The main and most controversial portions of the Act are the individual mandate provision and the Medicaid expansion provisions.

The individual mandate provision of the Act outlines that:

Americans, unless exempt, are required to maintain “minimum essential” health coverage. 26 U.S.C. §5000A.
For individuals who are not exempt, and do not receive health insurance through an employer or government program, insurance must be purchased from a private company.
Exempt individuals include those with very low incomes who are members of certain religious groups, or who face insurance premiums that would exceed 8% of family income even after including employer contributions and federal subsidies.

Beginning in 2014, all those who do not comply with this requirement will be required to make a “shared responsibility payment” to the Federal Government. 26 U.S.C. §5000A(b)(1). This payment is classified by the Act as a “penalty” which must be paid to the Internal Revenue Service with an individual’s taxes and is assessed and collected in the same manner as tax penalties. 26 U.S.C. §§5000A(c), (g)(1).

The purpose of the Medicaid expansion provision of the Act is to enhance and expand the scope of the current Medicaid program and increase the number of individuals that States must cover. As it stands currently, the Medicaid program provides federal funding to assist pregnant women, children, needy families, the blind, elderly and the disabled in obtaining the necessary medical care but does not provide any coverage for childless adults or even adults with children whose income does not fall significantly below the federal poverty level. Under this provision:

States must provide Medicare coverage to adults with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level, whereas currently, many States only cover adults with children only if their income is considerably lower than the federal poverty level.
In order to effectuate the increase in Medicaid coverage, the Act would increase federal funding to cover the States’ costs. 26 U.S.C. §1396d(y)(1).
If a State fails to comply with the Act’s new coverage requirement, it would not only lose the federal funding for those requirements, but would also lose its Medicaid funding altogether. 26 U.S.C. §1396(c).

It is easy to discern why the mandates of the Act sparked a controversial debate which will continue well into the future. In a narrow 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate provision of the Act but struck down the Medicaid provision. In general, the Democrats celebrated the idea of Americans being provided access to health insurance, but Republicans contend that the ruling is a dangerous expansion of government.

First and foremost, the Supreme Court ruled that the Anti-Injunction Act was not a bar to the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Act. The Anti-Injunction Act bars suits where the payment is classified as a “tax.” The mere label of the payment in the Act as a “penalty” rather than a tax, was controlling in determining whether the Anti-Injunction Act was a bar to a lawsuit. However, the Supreme Court warns that the label, although determinative of whether the Anti-Injunction Act is applicable, was not controlling in assessing whether the payment is a tax for purposes of the Constitution.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court found that the individual mandate provision, although impermissible under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause, was valid as a tax. In striking down the individual mandate provision under the Commerce Clause, the Supreme Court held:

The Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate Commerce – a power which presupposes the existence of commercial activity to be regulated;
The Act sets out to create commerce by compelling individuals to become active in the marketplace on the premise that the failure to do so affects interstate commerce and thus, the Act did not regulate existing commercial activity.
The Act would punish individuals for doing nothing and would open a vast domain of Congressional authority.

Similarly, under the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution, the Supreme Court held:

The Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution provides authority to Congress to exercise authority derivative of, and in service to, a granted power.
The individual mandate clause of the Act gives Congress the ability to create the necessary prerequisites within its granted powers in order to draw those who would normally fall outside of its realm, within its regulatory powers.

Despite failing under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Supreme Court found that the individual mandate provision was proper under the Taxing Clause. In following past precedent, the Court took a functional approach to determine whether the individual mandate provision of the Act was properly within Congress’ power to tax. Under such analysis, the Supreme Court determined that “[t]he payment is not so high that there is really no choice but to buy health insurance; the payment is not so limited to willful violations, as penalties for unlawful acts often are; and the payment is collected solely by the IRS through the normal means of taxation.” The Supreme Court found that the individual mandate provision of the Act does not impose any legal consequences for failure to obtain health insurance other than requiring a payment to the IRS. Furthermore, as a tax on insurance is unlike other direct taxes, it does not need to be apportioned to a State’s population to be in compliance with the Direct Tax Clause.

In upholding the individual mandate provision, Chief Justice John Roberts stated, “It is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance.” He also stated, “the federal government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance … the federal government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance.”

Contrastingly, the Supreme Court struck down the Medicaid provision of the Act finding:

The provision violated the Constitution by threatening the loss of a State’s existing Medicaid funding for failure or refusal to comply with the proposed expansion.
The Spending Clause of the Constitution presupposes a State’s voluntary and knowing acceptance of a program.
The Medicaid provision of the Act threatens to terminate other grants as a means of pressuring States to accept the Medicaid provision of the Act, which is not a power provided to Congress under the Constitution and runs afoul of our Nation’s system of federalism.

Nevertheless, the upholding of the individual mandate provision of the Act was the subject of much praise by Democrats. Supporters of the national health care system stated that the law would reduce health care costs, expand coverage and protect consumers. In place of creating a national health system, the law bans insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions, bans insurers from setting a dollar limit on health coverage payouts and requires them to cover preventive care at no additional cost to consumers.

Following the decision, in a televised White House statement, President Barack Obama stated: “today’s decision was a victory for people all over this country whose lives are more secure because of this law.” The underlying principle behind the Supreme Court’s decision was to ensure that no American should go bankrupt because of illness.

However, the new decision has been met with much criticism. Critics of the new law claim that the new law gives the government too much power to make decisions over issues of what should be a personal decision. Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota stated that the ruling “means now, for the first time in the history of the country, Congress can force Americans to purchase any product, any service.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling comes at a time very close to the 2012 Presidential election. Presidential nominee Mitt Romney criticized the ruling as a bad law. “What the court did not do in its last session, I will do on the first day if elected President of the United States, and that’s to repeal Obamacare.” On the opposite end of the spectrum, President Obama stated, “I know the debate over this law has been divisive. It should be pretty clear that I didn’t do this because it was good politics. I did it because I believe it is good for the country.” Now that the stage has been set, the extent of the beneficial or detrimental effects of the new law remains to be seen.

This is an article, by Theodore Y. Choi, Esquire who is a former associate at my firm. This article was originally published in Upon Further Review on July 18, 2012.

Posted in Articles by Others: by others at my Firm and tagged 42, 5901, abortifacients, abortion, ACA, act, additional, adultery, affirmation, affordable, all, amendment, america, appeal, Arizona, arms, assembly, attorney, barbara, bear, benediction, bible, bishop, board, burwell, business, c.s., care, case, chaplain, christian, christianity, civil, clause, client, cohen, common, commonwealth, conceieve, conception, congregation, conscience, constitution, constitutional, contraception, corporation, court, coverage, cushing, damage, decision, defendant, diocese, dip, disability, discrimination, divorce, double, employ, employee, employment, episcopal, establishment, faith, family, father, faye, first, freedom, government, greece, guns, hand, health, HIPPA, hobby, holy, honorable, human, injury, insurance, intelligencer, intimidate, intimidation, invocation, islam, islamic, james, jewish, joseph, judge, judgment, Justice, koran, law, lawyer, legal, legislative, legislature, lobby, marry, medical authorization, meet, meeting, mother, new, nonsectarian, oath, office, opinion, order, PA, parish, partnership, pennsylvania, philadelphia, plaintiff, pleas, prayer, priest, proprietor, quran, religion, religious, reproduction, reproductive, restoration, rfra, rights, riva, rule, ruling, saints, SCOTUS, second, secretary, sectariuan, section, services, social security, sole, states, SUE, suit, suit. attorney, supreme, supreme court, swear, swearing, testify, testimony, united, united states, vaccine, verdict, vestry, warnick, wife, witness, woman, women, work, york

20 Jul 2020

5th Circuit Says Fired Employee’s Suit Does Not Necessarily Require Deciding Ecclesiastical Questions

This is from religionclause.blogspot.com which you can find here:

In McRaney v. North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Inc., (5th Cir., July 16, 2020), the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of a suit by the former executive director of the General Mission Board of the Baptist Convention for Maryland/Delaware (“BCMD”). He alleged that the North American Mission Board (“NAMB”) intentionally made false statements about him that led to his termination. He also claimed that NAMB posted his picture at their headquarters to tell people that he was not to be trusted. The district court relied on the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine to dismiss the case. The 5th Circuit, reversing, said in part:

In order to resolve McRaney’s claims, the court will need to determine (1) whether NAMB intentionally and maliciously damaged McRaney’s business relationships by falsely claiming that he refused to meet with Ezell,… (2) whether NAMB’s statements about McRaney were false, defamatory, and at least negligently made …; and (3) whether NAMB intentionally caused McRaney to suffer foreseeable and severe emotional distress by displaying his picture at its headquarters…. At this early stage of the litigation, it is not clear that any of these determinations will require the court to address purely ecclesiastical questions.

You can learn more about this issue here.

17 Jul 2020

84 Comments

Templeton Project: Discipleship in Matthew and Apologetics XIV–Woes Turned to the Wisdom of Christ and the Blessings of the Kingdom

Back in October 2015 I wrote about the inauguration of the Abington Templeton Foundation (see here). The project is now underway (see here) and I will be posting our writing here.

Check out the latest piece entitled “Discipleship in Matthew and Apologetics XIV–Woes Turned to the Wisdom of Christ and the Blessings of the Kingdom.”

judicialsupport

Legal Writing for Legal Reading!

Archive for the month “July, 2020”

Templeton Project: Discipleship in Matthew and Apologetics XVI–The Resurrection

Joe Arcieri Songs: Lady Luck

Law360’s Weekly Verdict: Legal Lions & Lambs

2nd Circuit: Free Speech and Free Exercise Claims of Christian Adoption Agency Can Move Forward

Templeton Project: Discipleship in Matthew and Apologetics XV–The Sign of the Cross

3rd Circ. Grounds Harassment Suit Against American Airlines

5th Circuit Says Fired Employee’s Suit Does Not Necessarily Require Deciding Ecclesiastical Questions

Templeton Project: Discipleship in Matthew and Apologetics XIV–Woes Turned to the Wisdom of Christ and the Blessings of the Kingdom

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta

Legal Writing for Legal Reading!

Archive for the month “July, 2020”

Post Navigation

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta