3d Circuit issues another TVII religious discharge decision

[Hamilton02 at aol.com]

This is a classic church doctrine case where the court could not settle the  
dispute without determining the religious entity's beliefs.  It's a  
non-ministerial employee, so Petruska is irrelevant.  Having said that, the  end of the 
opinion is very interesting where the court warns religious entities  that 
they should not overread the decision -- where the religious entity fails  to 
assert a persuasive religious justification for the treatment allegedly in  
violation of Title II, Title VII will apply as it would to any other  employer.  
This is the core rationale of Petruska (and the 9th Cir's  Bollard before it).
 
Marci
 
 
 
 
Marci A. Hamilton
Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Yeshiva University
 
 

The case is  Curay-Cramer v. Ursuline Academy  of Wilmington:   
_http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/3rd/044628p.pdf_ 
(http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/3rd/044628p.pdf)  
The court applied the NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago analysis in  
rejecting a Title VII sex discrimination / disparate treatment claim, but  rejected 
two other counts on statutory grounds, for pure failure to state a  claim, 
without even needing to find that the constitution warranted a narrow  
construction. 
Judge Becker was on the panel, but  died before the decision was finalized.  
The opinion contains no citation  to the recent Petruska v.  Gannon decision, 
and the court  only alludes to the ministerial exception in a footnote.   


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