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.

An appellate court in Pennsylvania has affirmed a trial court decision refusing to invade the principal of a charitable trust to help a beneficiary avoid insolvency.  It has said that the charity’s financial position is its own responsibility and distribution of principal would be contrary to the donor’s intent.

The Supreme Court of Oregon has overruled a Tax Court decision and held that a vacant lot acquired by an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity and being held for the construction of a house for a low-income family is exempt from real estate tax even before construction has been started.  The Tax Court had held that the property was not “actually and exclusively occupied or used” by Habitat in its charitable purposes.

Is the Culinary Institute of America liable when one of its instructors injures a child in a traffic accident while driving home from work?

The executor of a decedent’s estate in New York has been surcharged $630,000, plus 6% interest, for selling the decedent’s residence for only about half of its fair market value, depriving four Lutheran charities and Adelphi University of the value in their remainder interest.

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.