A federal District Court in Texas has dismissed a series of claims brought by an applicant for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status against Lois Lerner, former Director of Exempt Organizations Division of the IRS.  The Court said that Freedom Path, Inc., an organization caught up in the IRS “Tea Party scandal” and required to provide additional information, had not shown that it had personal jurisdiction over Lerner in Texas.  The Court also dismissed a number of claims that Freedom Path brought against the IRS itself.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has agreed to consider whether an attorney for a public charity who believes that charitable assets are being unlawfully diverted for private purposes may notify the Attorney General.

A decedent’s estate that set aside money for a charity has been denied an estate income tax deduction when part of the funds were utilized to settle a claim against the estate that was known at the time of the set aside.  The Tax Court has ruled that the deduction is not available when the chance that part of the set aside would not go to the charity was not “so remote as to be negligible.”

Firing a billing manager praised for her experience in a recent performance evaluation because of her lack of expertise needed by an experienced billing manager sounds like it could be a pretext for termination, a federal District Court in Washington has ruled.  It has allowed the employee to proceed with her suit for retaliation under the federal False Claims Act.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a District Court decision finding a violation of the Clayton Act as the result of a hospital system’s acquisition of a physicians group in Idaho.  The Court has affirmed the trial court’s order for the hospital to divest itself of the group.

A closed church and manse for its clergy are entitled to real estate tax exemption when they are used for storage and other religious purposes, the Tax Court of New Jersey has ruled.  It has granted the exemption over the claims of the local municipality that sought to impose the taxes.

An individual applying for a special religious worker visa to enter the United States may apply for the status despite having entered the country and stayed illegally, a federal District Court in Illinois has ruled.  The Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had denied the application because of the prior violation, but the Court said the statute permitted application without regard to the prior violation.

The commission of organizational resources may be sufficient to show the injury necessary to confer standing for a housing rights organization to challenge discriminatory practices by an apartment owner, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has ruled.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation and two of its top officers lack standing to challenge the “parsonage allowance” exemption for housing expenses of “ministers of the gospel,” the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held.  The Court said the officers had no standing because, even though they received a housing allowance and paid tax on it, they had not actually applied for the exemption.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network (“CAIR”) is not liable to individuals claiming that they suffered damages when an “attorney” with the CAIR chapter in Virginia failed to follow through on promises actions to help them with their legal problems.  The federal District Court in the District of Columbia has granted summary judgment to CAIR after rejecting several theories of liability for the actions of its chapter.  (