Lead Stories

“The question of who can speak for the animals has long vexed federal judges in animal-welfare cases,” a judge in the federal District Court for the District of Columbia has written recently.  “As a general matter, courts have concluded that well-established principles of Article III standing permit human beings to invoke their own injuries in fact to challenge harms done to animals, but it can be exceptionally confusing to apply settled standing doctrine to determine when and under what circumstances an act that is allegedly harmful to animals works a cognizable injury in fact to huma

Charities and others are increasingly facing suits for alleged breach of fiduciary duty in failing to hold down the costs of various pension and benefit plans covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”).  (See Nonprofit Issues^®, 6/16.)  But a Department of Labor suit against a group of nonprofits in Maryland has raised two additional issues:  that charity officials breached their fiduciary duty in one case because they solicited charitable contr

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed dismissal of a suit brought against individual directors of Catholic Health Ministries by a woman who claimed she was injured because the Catholic hospital to which she went for treatment of a miscarriage during her pregnancy followed the Catholic Health Directives approved by CHM.  The Court, however, resolved the case without reaching a significant holding of the trial court that had acted previously.  (Means v.

A federal District Court in Utah has ruled that an association lacks standing to claim that Utah’s statute requiring fundraising counsel to register with the state if their clients solicit charitable contributions in Utah is unconstitutional “as applied.”  The Court has left standing a prior ruling in the case that a fundraising counsel threatened with penalties if it didn’t register has standing to contest the requirement.  (American Charities for Reasonable Fundraising Regulation v.

The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General has reached a new agreement with the trustees of the Hershey Trust Company and Hershey School only three years after an agreement made in 2013. 

The Court of Appeals of Minnesota has reversed a trial court decision and permitted participants in pension plans of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to proceed with a suit against the plan board for breach of fiduciary duty.