OHIO
Baptist Joint Committee
Written by Don Byrd
Tuesday, 04 June 2013
A jury awarded $170,000 to teacher Christa Dias yesterday in an employment discrimination suit after she was fired for being pregnant while unmarried (via in vitro fertilization). Her employer was the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which now may argue the case should never have gotten to a jury due to the ministerial exception, which exempts religious employers from discrimination laws regarding employees with a ministerial role.
Associated Press has more:
The archdiocese argued before trial that Dias, who was a computer technology teacher, was a “ministerial employee,” a position that has not been clearly defined by the courts.
The Supreme Court has said religious groups can dismiss those employees without government interference. But [Dias’ attorney Robert] Klingler insisted Dias had no such ministerial duties, and the Cincinnati court found she was not a ministerial employee and that the issue couldn’t be argued at trial.
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