Religious Employer Still Denied Fast Appeal on Bias Suit Defense

Faith Bible International couldn’t convince the full Tenth Circuit to review whether the rejection of the organization’s defense to a job discrimination lawsuit—asserting that the employee suing was a “minister” beyond the reach of anti-bias law—is immediately appealable.

The denial of en banc review in Gregory Tucker’s race-based retaliation lawsuit let stand a June 7 ruling by a divided three-judge panel, which denied Faith Bible’s attempt to invoke the collateral order doctrine. That doctrine sometimes permits litigants to bypass the general rule that appeals may only be filed after a final judgment in a lawsuit, if they can show the ...