Litigation
Cal. Litig. 2020, Volume 33, Number 2
Content
- A Long and Winding Road to Undo Bad Supreme Court Law
- Stringfellow Acid Pits: the Toxic and Legal Legacy By Brian Craig
- That Family Is Wrong for You: Religious Objections Before the Supreme Court
- Intellectual Property Litigation and Other Updates in the Video Game Industry as of April 2020
- Navigating the New Settled Statement Procedures
- Recent Legislative Changes Affect Long-Standing Pre-Trial Discovery Practice
- Nuts and Bolts of Videoconference Dispute Resolution in the Time of Covid-19
- Showing Lack of Probable Cause: Plaintiff's Burden of Proof in Opposing an Anti-Slapp Motion Attacking a Malicious Prosecution Claim
- Table of Contents
- McLe Article Threats, Extortion and Legitimate Advocacy
- Navigating the New Settled Statement Procedures
- Insurance Coverage Analysis Avoids Malpractice Landmines
- Nuts and Bolts of Videoconference Dispute Resolution in the Time of Covid-19
- Masthead
- Intellectual Property Litigation and Other Updates in the Video Game Industry as of April 2020
- That Family Is Wrong for You: Religious Objections Before the Supreme Court
- Affirmative Action Quandaries the Affirmative Action Puzzle: a Living History from Reconstruction to Today (Pantheon:322 Pages) By Melvin I. Urofsky
- Stringfellow Acid Pits: the Toxic and Legal Legacy By Brian Craig
- Insurance Coverage Analysis Avoids Malpractice Landmines
- Recent Legislative Changes Affect Long-Standing Pre-Trial Discovery Practice
- A Long and Winding Road to Undo Bad Supreme Court Law
- From the Section Chair News for a New World
- Editor's Foreword Sweet Successes — On or About 31 Flavors
- Showing Lack of Probable Cause: Plaintiff's Burden of Proof in Opposing an Anti-Slapp Motion Attacking a Malicious Prosecution Claim
- McLe Article Threats, Extortion and Legitimate Advocacy
- Masthead
- Affirmative Action Quandaries the Affirmative Action Puzzle: a Living History from Reconstruction to Today (Pantheon:322 Pages) By Melvin I. Urofsky
- Table of Contents
- From Cla's Ceo a Personal Plea for Addressing the Root Causes of Racism
- From the Section Chair News for a New World
- The Puzzle of Precedent in the California Court of Appeal
- Editor's Foreword Sweet Successes — On or About 31 Flavors
- The Puzzle of Precedent in the California Court of Appeal
- From Cla's Ceo a Personal Plea for Addressing the Root Causes of Racism
That Family Is Wrong for You: Religious Objections Before the Supreme Court
By Peter Renn
Peter Renn is Counsel in the Los Angeles office of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. prenn@lambdalegal.org
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a taxpayer-funded foster care provider’s religious objection to protections against sexual orientation discrimination in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2019) 922 F.3d 140. The decision could have significant implications for the ability of government to enforce nondiscrimination requirements. If decided broadly, Fulton also has the potential to reshape much of law as we know it, ushering a new era of expanded litigation over religious objections to virtually any legal obligation.
Fulton asks whether it is constitutionally permissible for the City of Philadelphia to require that its foster care providers, who are contracted to provide government services, comply with the City’s nondiscrimination policy. The provider at issue, Catholic Social Services (CSS), refuses to work with married same-sex couples seeking to serve as foster parents because of its religious belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. That refusal violates the City’s nondiscrimination protections, which bar discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, and other characteristics. After learning of that refusal policy, the City did not renew its contract with CSS. CSS seeks an injunction to force the City to renew its contract — while also permitting CSS to engage in otherwise prohibited discriminatory conduct.