On December 17, 2018, the Ninth Circuit reversed a decision
by the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Biel
v. St. James School, A Corp., et al., Case No. 17-55180.
Plaintiff Kristen Biel, a fifth-grade teacher for Defendant, filed a
claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) when St. James Catholic
School fired her after she told the School that she had breast cancer and needed time off from work to undergo chemotherapy. The district court dismissed Biel’s claims at summary
judgment—holding that her lawsuit under the ADA was barred by the First
Amendment’s “ministerial exception.” After her case was dismissed, Plaintiff
Biel appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
In November 2013, Plaintiff Biel received a positive
teaching evaluation from the School’s principal, noting that Biel was “very
good” at promoting a safe and caring learning environment for her students. Less
than six months after that evaluation, Biel was diagnosed with breast cancer.
When she disclosed her diagnosis to the School’s administrators, she was told her
employment contract would not be renewed because “it was not fair … to have two
teachers for the children during the school year.”
Biel sued St. James in the United States District Court for
the Central District of California, alleging that her termination violated the
ADA, which prohibits employment discrimination based on disability. St. James
moved for summary judgment, arguing that the First Amendment’s ministerial
exception to generally applicable employment laws barred Biel’s ADA claims. The
district court agreed and granted summary judgment for St. James.
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed, finding that the total circumstances of Biel’s employment did not qualify her as a
minister for the purposes of the ministerial exception.
In Hosanna-Tabor,
the only case where the U.S. Supreme Court has applied the ministerial exception,
the Court focused on four major considerations to determine if the ministerial
exception applied: (1) whether the employer held the employee out as a
minister, (2) whether the employee’s title reflected ministerial substance and
training, (3) whether the employee held herself out as a minister, and (4)
whether the employee’s job duties included “important religious functions.” Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church
& School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171, 192 (2012).
In Hosanna-Tabor,
Cheryl Perich, a teacher for a Lutheran school, was fired after she was
diagnosed with narcolepsy and brought ADA claims against the school. The
Supreme Court found that the ministerial exception did apply because Perich was
more than just a teacher in the Lutheran school. She had a special title of “Minister
of Religion” conferred to her by the congregation and distinct from other
teachers. Perich led her students in daily prayer, and she also led the school wide
mass that occurred twice each school year. Perich claimed a federal tax benefit
for employees earning compensation in the "exercise of the ministry" on her tax
returns, and she also had to complete extensive religion training in the Lutheran
doctrine that took her six years to complete in order to be a commissioned minister.
In light of these circumstances, the Supreme Court held that Perish was a
minister covered by the ministerial exception.
The Ninth Circuit found that Biel, by contrast, had no sort
of credentials, training or titles like Perich. Biel was Catholic, but St. James Catholic School did
not require its employees to be Catholic to teach. Biel did not have any
extensive training in religion or the Catholic pedagogy. Biel taught all fifth-grade
subjects, including a thirty-minute religion class using a workbook on the Catholic
faith prescribed by the school administrators. And while Biel joined her
students in prayer twice daily, Biel did not lead her students in prayer, and
her only job duties at the School’s monthly mass were to keep her class orderly
and quiet.
After a holistic examination of her training and duties demonstrated that Biel had a limited role in her student’s spiritual
lives, the Ninth Circuit held the ministerial exception did not apply, reversing and remanding her case back to the district court. Biel’s lawyer, Andrew Pletcher, said Biel is still struggling with cancer but is delighted by the Ninth Circuit's ruling.
