Ex-worker can't sue church

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that employment-discrimination laws don't protect ministers, finding that churches have a constitutional right to decide who preaches their faith without government review.

"The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a unanimous court, citing principles of ecclesiastical independence dating back to the Magna Carta and embodied in the First Amendment.

However, the court provided no clear way to tell which church employees fall under the "ministerial exception" to discrimination laws.

In the case decided Wednesday, the court ruled against Cheryl Perich, who had been fired from her teaching job at the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in Redford, Mich.

Ms. Perich took a disability leave after being diagnosed with narcolepsy. When she sought to reclaim her position several months later, Hosanna-Tabor told her it had been filled. After further disputes, she was fired. She complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which agreed that her firing violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The commission conceded that religious institutions are exempt from some antidiscrimination laws—for example, the Catholic Church cannot be compelled to ordain women priests—but contended that Ms. Perich's job fell outside that limited exception.

The school gave preference to "called" teachers who completed programs at Lutheran colleges and obtained the title of "minister of religion, commissioned." Ms. Perich held the title and had some religious duties, such as leading students in prayer, though she mainly taught secular subjects such as math and music.

Because the duties of lay and called teachers are identical, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati concluded that Ms. Perich fell outside any ministerial exemption.

The Supreme Court found otherwise.

"Perich held herself out as a minister of the Church by accepting the formal call to religious service," the chief justice wrote. He added, however, that the court was leaving open whether churches could be sued for reasons other than discrimination, such as breach of contract or negligence.

Separately, the court turned down a defendant who argued that any eyewitness identifications made under "suggestive circumstances," not just those orchestrated by police, should face extra scrutiny before being admitted at trial.

Barion Perry was convicted of theft in Nashua, N.H., based partly on testimony from an eyewitness who saw him from her window when he was standing in a parking lot being questioned by a police officer.

Under longstanding precedent, when police arrange for eyewitness identifications under suggestive circumstances, trial judges have been required to ensure that the evidence is sufficiently reliable before presenting it to a jury.

Mr. Perry argued that the same rule should apply even when police aren't responsible for the situation, citing studies indicating that eyewitness testimony is often unreliable.

By an 8-1 vote, the court declined. Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the court's precedents were largely intended to deter police from framing defendants through "improper lineups, showups and photo arrays," rather than reflecting a particular distrust of eyewitness testimony in general.

Regular rules of evidence and bedrock constitutional rights, such as the Sixth Amendment guarantee of effective assistance of counsel, are sufficient to protect against misidentification under the circumstances Mr. Perry faced, Justice Ginsburg wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

(Published by WSJ - January 12, 2012)