A divided New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest appellate court, has ruled that economic development is not a charitable activity and that a parking garage operated by a 501(c)(3) economic development organization is not eligible for real estate tax exemption.

A 501(c)(3) organization that operates soup kitchens, emergency shelters, and housing programs has not been shown to be subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act when two maintenance workers in its housing program failed to allege facts sufficient to show the organization was an enterprise involved in commerce or that they engaged in commerce themselves.

A mortgage granted by a failing hospital to secure a loan from a healthcare system with which it wanted to affiliate is not illegal because it was not specifically approved by the hospital’s members, a bankruptcy court in Maine has held.  The Court has refused to allow the hospital to use the proceeds of the loan in face of the healthcare system’s objection.

A federal District Court in Michigan has refused to consider a claim that current and former board chairs of a Catholic healthcare system had negligently adopted healthcare policies that caused a woman to receive improper treatment and information regarding her miscarriage prior to childbirth.  The Court said it would not question the Catholic Ethical and Religious Directives because to do so would involve an impermissible intrusion on ecclesiastical matters.  (Means v.

Courts are generally reluctant to get involved in church controversies for fear of becoming impermissibly entangled in ecclesiastical matters in violation of the First Amendment protection of religion.  But they do get involved where they can decide church disputes under “neutral principles of law” without having to decide issues of religious doctrine.

Overturning a 1965 decision holding that extrinsic evidence was inadmissible to reform a will that is unambiguous on its face, a unanimous Supreme Court of California has held that an unambiguous will may be reformed to conform to the testator’s intent if the claimants establish by clear and convincing evidence that the will contains a mistake of intent and also establish the testator’s actual specific intent at the time the will was drafted.  The Court says it is joining a small but growing number of states that are modernizing their rules to more accurately fulfill the testator’s int

The statement that “religious guys basically stand a lot when they pray and when they talk and give lectures” was not persuasive to the New Jersey Tax Court as it considered an appeal from the denial of real estate tax exemption for a former bank owned by a private school.

The federal District Court in the District of Columbia has affirmed the retroactive revocation of charitable exemption of a scholarship foundation that operated for the private benefit of a single family.