This just in…

Today the U.S. Supreme Court broadened the application of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s religious exemption provision.

The exemption now applies to benefit plans maintained by church affiliates, regardless of whether an actual church established the plan. Advocate Health Care Network, Saint Peter’s Healthcare System and Dignity Health were before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn lower court rulings holding that the exemption applied only when actual churches established the benefit plan. The hospitals contended a 1980 amendment to ERISA clarified that church-affiliated organizations, not just churches, could maintain such a plan and still be exempt.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the unanimous opinion. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-74_5i36.pdf.

The ruling provides hospitals with more freedom from ERISA’s plan requirements.

More analysis on the ruling will be provided in subsequent posts.

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Photo of Mike Reilly Mike Reilly

Mike Reilly is a nationally recognized labor, employment and employee benefits attorney, named one of the “Top 100 Most Powerful Employment Attorneys in the Nation” for the past five consecutive years by Human Resource Executive®. He has decades of experience providing strategic employment…

Mike Reilly is a nationally recognized labor, employment and employee benefits attorney, named one of the “Top 100 Most Powerful Employment Attorneys in the Nation” for the past five consecutive years by Human Resource Executive®. He has decades of experience providing strategic employment advice, and has represented clients in more than 75 jury trials, arbitrations, bench trials and claims before the EEOC and Washington State Human Rights Commission.

Small and large employers retain Mike for his strategic advice and decades of experience in employment issues and litigation, business decisions and litigation avoidance. Mike provides advice in claims involving discrimination, retaliation, wrongful discharge, disability accommodation, ERISA and non-ERISA employee benefit claims, and wage/hour claims. He served as lead counsel in an employee raiding/trade secret case as reported in the Wall Street Journal, and defends employers in class action claims.

Mike’s remarks on employment issues have been quoted in NewsweekCorporate Legal TimesSeattle TimesEmployee Relations Law JournalPuget Sound Business JournalCFO.com, and other professional journals and management publications. Chambers USA’s Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers for Businessrates Mike in the top ranking (band one) for his work in labor and employment law, and has described him as “one of Seattle’s top-rate attorneys” who is “truly phenomenal [with] superb legal instincts” and “an amazingly assertive litigator.” His clients include Nordstrom, Seattle Seahawks, Home Depot, KeyBank, Starbucks, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Red Robin and Seattle Chamber of Commerce, among others.