Religious Employers Must Wait to Appeal Bias Suit Shield Ruling

The “ministerial exception” to job discrimination claims only shields religious employers from potential liability, not from having to litigate, and a court’s denial of the exception can’t be appealed until a final judgment is entered, a divided Tenth Circuit ruled on an issue of first impression.

By a 2-1 vote, the court rejected Faith Bible International’s call to invoke the collateral order doctrine under which a litigant can sometimes seek an immediate appeal on a novel issue that will affect the overall outcome of a case. The circumstances in Gregory Tucker’s race-based retaliation lawsuit didn’t meet the criteria for allowing ...