“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

An employee allegedly told that she was passed over for a promotion because the selected candidate had “a management background” and “you were on maternity leave for a while” has sufficient evidence of sex discrimination to proceed to suit, a federal District Court in Maryland has held.

The Internal Revenue Service and a federal District Court are justified in saying that an non-existent entity is not entitled to federal income tax exemption as a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, the First Circuit Court of Appeals has held.  The conclusion was reached in an appeal by a convicted tax evader who was trying to avoid having to personally pay $3.79 million in income taxes owed on money received from his creation and sale of health supplements.

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.

In a discrimination case where the plaintiff complained that she was subject to harassment after employees began asking whether her medical leave involved a sex change operation, the parties have been disputing the scope of discovery.  The woman claimed that she was subject to harassment and ultimately terminated based on her medically diagnosed disability and her employer’s perception that she is not a stereotypical female.