An appellate court in Oregon has reversed a trial court decision holding that complaints of wrongdoing disclosed to the managers doing wrong are not protected by the state’s whistleblower protection statute.   A trial court had held that an employee of a nonprofit irrigation district who had expressed concerns about mismanagement and violation of board policies and other rules and regulations to her managers had not made a proper “disclosure” to obtain protection of the law.  The Court of Appeals of Oregon has reversed.

The Executive Finance Officer of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit health clinic has apparent authority to bind the clinic to the terms of a “Revenue Purchase Agreement” with a business funding group that paid the clinic for accounts receivable to be collected in the future.  A federal District Court in Philadelphia has denied the clinic’s request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the business funding group from executing on its agreement with the clinic.

A member of a local Masonic Lodge has no standing to bring a suit to contest the process of dissolution and ownership of its funds, the Supreme Court of Montana has ruled.  It has denied a series of standing claims brought by the individual member, saying that the member was precluded from suing under the governing documents of the state’s Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.

Although not cited very often, the “rule of lenity” is occasionally used by a court as a last resort to decide a case when it cannot determine the legislative intent of a statute.  Under the rule, if the court cannot ascertain the intent of the Legislature using all the ordinary rules of statutory construction, “the defendant is entitled to any rational doubt.”

A for-profit business that forgave a loan to a 501(c)(3) charitable affiliate has lost a $2.9 million charitable contribution deduction because the contemporaneous written acknowledgment letter received from the affiliate did not state whether the donor had received goods or services in return.  

Deed restrictions returning a piece of real estate to a donor if a charitable grantee fails to use the property for a specific charitable purpose can tie up title for many years and create a great uncertainty about the ownership and use of property.  But a claim that a property has not been used for its given purpose which is first raised more than 60 years after the improper use began has failed in Connecticut because of the general rules of adverse possession.