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Miriam Grussgott v. Milwaukee Jewish Day School, Inc.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, No. 17-2332 · judgment February 13, 2018


Certiorari denied · November 5, 2018
Pre-decision estimate: 0% cert probability

Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.

Question presented

Does the definition of "religious institution" in the two prong test for "ministerial exception" in Hosanna- Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and Sch. v. E.E.O.C., 565 U.S. 171, 132 S.Ct. 694, 709, 181 L.Ed. 2d 650 (2012) (hereinafter "Hosanna ") require that the "religious institution" be "faith-based" and have at its head to hire and fire either a certified, ordained or lay "minister" and/or a hierarchy of such ministers, or is it sufficient for the "religious institution" to be an institution administered in hiring and firing by totally lay people with absolutely no ministerial certification, formal or informal, and with no hierarchy whatsoever of ministers, as in Grussgott v. Milwaukee Jewish Day School, Inc., 882 F.3d 655 (2018) (hereinafter "Grussgott", which the Seventh Circuit has held in this case? Does the "ministerial exception" require a) religious "experience" as opposed to religious "training", as held by the Seventh Circuit in Grussgott and contrasted in Shaliehsabou v. Hebrew Home of Greater Washington, Inc., 363 F.3d 299 (2004); b) religious teaching and job descriptions that are "tasked" Hosanna-Tabor at 132 S.Ct. 694, 708, as opposed to "volunteered"; and c) teaching with a cultural, historical perspective, which was held to be ministerial under the "ministerial exception" as the Seventh Circuit held in this case Grussgott, as opposed to "faithbased" teaching, leading and supervising, under the Sixth Circuit in Alyee T Conlon v. Intervarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. 777 F.3d 829 (6th Cir. 2015)

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Miriam Grussgott

For respondent
Aaron Howard Aizenberg
Kravit, Hovel & Krawczyk, s.c.

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 2 conferences

Proceedings

  1. Nov 05 2018
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Oct 17 2018
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/2/2018.
  3. Sep 27 2018
    Brief of respondent Milwaukee Jewish Day School in opposition filed.
  4. Aug 29 2018
    Response Requested. (Due September 28, 2018)
  5. Aug 08 2018
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/24/2018.
  6. Aug 02 2018
    Waiver of right of respondent Milwaukee Jewish Day School to respond filed.
  7. May 14 2018
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due August 27, 2018)