Justices boost workplace religious protections
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court strengthened civil rights protections Monday for employees and job applicants who need special treatment in the workplace because of their religious beliefs.
The justices sided with a Muslim woman who did not get hired after she showed up to a job interview with clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch wearing a black headscarf.
The headscarf, or hijab, violated the company's strict dress code, since changed, for employees who work in its retail stores.
Employers generally have to accommodate job applicants and employees with religious needs if the employer at least has an idea that such accommodation is necessary, Justice Antonin Scalia said in his opinion for the court.
Job applicant Samantha Elauf did not tell her interviewer she was Muslim. But Scalia said that Abercrombie "at least suspected" that Elauf wore a headscarf for religious reasons. "That is enough," Scalia said in an opinion for seven justices.
Federal civil rights law gives religious practices "favored treatment" that forbids employers from firing or not hiring people based on their observance of religion, Scalia said. The federal civil rights law known as Title VII requires employers to make accommodations for employees' religious beliefs in most instances. Elauf's case turned on how employers are supposed to know when someone has a religious need to be accommodated.
The decision does not, by itself, resolve her case. Instead, it will return to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which earlier ruled against her.
"While the Supreme Court reversed the Tenth Circuit decision, it did not determine that A&F discriminated against Ms. Elauf. We will determine our next steps in the litigation," company spokeswoman Carlene Benz said in an email.
Some business groups said Monday's ruling will force employers to make assumptions about applicants' religious beliefs.
"Shifting this burden to employers sets an unclear and confusing standard making business owners extremely vulnerable to inevitable discrimination lawsuits," said Karen Harned, a top lawyer at the National Federation of Independent Business. "Whether employers ask an applicant about religious needs or not, there is a good chance they will be sued."
Jenny Yang, chairwoman of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, praised the court for "affirming that employers may not make an applicant's religious practice a factor in employment decisions." The EEOC had sued on Elauf's behalf.
Elauf was 17 when she interviewed for a "model" position, as the company calls its sales staff, at an Abercrombie Kids store in a shopping mall in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2008. She impressed the assistant store manager with whom she met. But her application faltered over her headscarf because it conflicted with the company's Look Policy, a code derived from Abercrombie's focus on what it calls East Coast collegiate or preppy style.
Abercrombie has since changed its policy on headscarves and has settled similar lawsuits elsewhere.
After the EEOC filed suit, a jury eventually awarded Elauf $20,000.
But the appeals court threw out the award and concluded that Abercrombie & Fitch could not be held liable because Elauf never asked the company to relax its policy against headscarves.
Court throws out conviction for Facebook threats
By Sam Hananel
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday threw out the conviction of a man prosecuted for making threats on Facebook, but dodged the free-speech issues that had made the case intriguing to advocates of free speech..
Chief Justice John Roberts said it was not enough for prosecutors to show that the comments of Anthony Elonis about killing his ex-wife and harming others would make a reasonable person feel threatened. But the high court sent the case back to the lower court without clarifying exactly what the standard of proof should be.
The ruling was a narrow victory for civil liberties groups that had urged the court to make it tougher to convict people who make crude comments on social media that might be viewed as threatening.
Yet the high court declined to lay out broad constitutional protections for such comments. "It is not necessary to consider any First Amendment issues," Roberts wrote, referring to a provision in the U.S. Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech among other rights.
Elonis was prosecuted under a law that makes it a crime to threaten another person after he posted Facebook rants in the form of rap lyrics about killing his estranged wife, harming law enforcement officials and shooting up a school.
One post about his wife said, "There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts."
Elonis claimed the government had no right to prosecute him if he didn't actually intend his comments to be threatening to others. He argued that his musings were protected by the First Amendment.
But the government said it didn't matter what Elonis intended. It argued that if the comments provoked enough fear and anxiety to make a reasonable person feel threatened, that was enough to prosecute it as a crime.
Seven justices on the high court agreed that it was not necessary to reach First Amendment issues in reversing Elonis' conviction. Roberts said the reasonable-person standard is "inconsistent with the conventional requirement for criminal conduct - awareness of some wrongdoing."
Justice Samuel Alito agreed with the outcome, but said he would have made clear that a person can violate the law if he disregards the risk that comments will be interpreted as a threat.
Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying he would have found Elonis' posts to be "true threats" under the objective standard accepted by the vast majority of appeals courts prior to Monday's ruling.
Facebook was not a party in the case.
Bankrupt homeowners can't void second mortgage
WASHINGTON (AP) - A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that homeowners who declare bankruptcy can't void a second mortgage even if the home isn't worth what they owe on the primary mortgage.
The justices ruled in two Florida cases that bankrupt homeowners can't "strip off" a second loan even if they are underwater on the first loan.
Both cases involved property owners who were allowed by lower courts to nullify second loans held by Bank of America. The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed both cases, but Bank of America said the rulings conflicted with Supreme Court precedent.
The company argued that even if the primary mortgage is underwater, that should not affect the lien securing the second loan. The bank said the second loan might be repaid eventually if the property's value rises in the future.
The homeowners said the second loans were worthless.
Bank of America claimed hundreds - and possibly thousands - of homeowners in states covered by the 11th Circuit had moved to void underwater second mortgages since the appeals court endorsed the practice two years ago. Those states include Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
Five of the top nine housing markets with the highest percentage of "seriously underwater" properties were in Florida during the first three months of the year, according to the real-estate-research company RealtyTrac. The research firm defines seriously underwater as when the combined loan amount secured by the property is at least 25 percent higher than its estimated market value.
Court reverses deportation of man over minor drug crime
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has overturned the deportation of a Tunisian man whose crime was possessing drug paraphernalia.
Mones Mellouli was deported after he pleaded guilty to the minor drug crime in Kansas state court. The item in question was a sock that contained four pills of the stimulant Adderall.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court Monday that federal law does not authorize deportation for such a minor offense.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
Justices reject bid to revive Arizona no-bail law
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an Arizona county's attempt to reinstate a state law that denies bail to people in the country illegally who are charged with certain crimes.
The justices left in place a lower-court ruling that struck down the law that Arizona voters approved in 2006.
The law denied bail to immigrants who are in the country illegally and have been charged with a range of felonies that include shoplifting, aggravated identity theft, sexual assault and murder.
As a result, immigrants spent months in jail and often simply pleaded guilty and were turned over to federal immigration authorities for deportation.
Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas said they would have heard the case. It takes the votes of four justices to hear an appeal.
Thomas, in an opinion for himself and Scalia, said the court's action could give lower courts "free rein to strike down state laws on the basis of dubious constitutional analysis."
He said it is "disheartening" that another justice wouldn't also want to review the lower court ruling.
In November, the justices refused a request from Maricopa county to keep the law in place while the appeal played out at the Supreme Court. Thomas dissented from that vote, too.
The case is County of Maricopa v. Lopez-Valenzuela, 14-825.
Officials immune in suit over inmate suicide
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court says former Delaware prison administrators are immune from a lawsuit over a 2004 inmate suicide.
The justices on Monday ruled against the family of Christopher Barkes, who hanged himself just hours after being arrested for violating probation.
A federal appeals court ruled last year that the family could pursue claims that the prison violated Barkes' constitutional rights by failing to conduct a proper suicide prevention screening.
But the justices in an unsigned opinion said there was no clearly established law at the time giving inmates a right to adequate suicide prevention protocols.
Published: Wed, Jun 03, 2015
