An employee’s claim under a state whistleblower protection law is not defeated because an employer suspended both the employee who filed a criminal complaint for sexual assault and the accused co-employee from their jobs in a sheltered workshop. 

A nonprofit providing services to persons with mental health issues and other disabilities sought to have the claim dismissed because it treated its two client employees equally.  A trial court in Michigan agreed and dismissed the case.  An appellate court has reversed.

The “ministerial exception” that protects churches and church-related entities from many employment suits does not protect a Catholic elementary school from suit by a fifth grade teacher who claims she was terminated in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling, has reversed a District Court decision dismissing the case.

A member of an Illinois nonprofit corporation has standing to sue members of the board of directors for breach of fiduciary duty by establishing “an undisclosed side agreement among themselves” that he claims disenfranchises members by distorting their votes.  But a federal District Court in Missouri has directed the member to show whether the amount in controversy exceeds the $75,000 minimum necessary to confer diversity jurisdiction on the court.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has refused to join several other jurisdictions in accepting a “good cause” inquiry to provide exceptions to the basic rule of attorney-client privilege in derivative action cases.  It has held that providing such a “conditional privilege” would reduce the certainty of the attorney-client privilege.

The Tax Court has denied charitable contribution deductions for two conservation easements that it concluded did not protect property from development “in perpetuity” and significantly reduced the claimed deduction for a third easement that it said did qualify.

The Supreme Court of Ohio has affirmed the denial of charitable real estate exemption for property owned by a 501(c)(2) title holding company and leased to a 501(c)(3) charity operating a hemodialysis facility on the property.  The tenant, Community Dialysis Center, is the sole member of the Leonard C. Rosenberg Foundation, another 501(c)(3) charity, which is the sole member of the title holding company, Chagrin Realty.  Chagrin forwards the net rentals to the Foundation.

An appellate court in New York has allowed the state Attorney General to proceed with litigation charging a parent nonprofit corporation and several of its officers and directors with misapplying the surplus funds of a subsidiary for the benefit of other affiliates.  It has reversed a trial court decision that had dismissed the claims.