Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. Civil Rights Comm'n

19 Analyses of this case by attorneys

  1. USDOL Announced A Coming Controversial OFCCP Final Rule Recognizing Expanded Religious Defenses, Even While Only Mirroring the Recent Case Law Which Established Them, Published the Rule Two Days Later, And Then Two Days Later Drew Angry Criticism From House Speaker Pelosi

    DirectEmployers AssociationJohn FoxDecember 14, 2020

    to put in proof at trial satisfying the higher legal requirement that the protected civil rights of the estimated 9 million people in the United States who are gay and lesbian are more compelling than the rights of the estimated more than the tens of millions of people of faith in the United States who sincerely believe homosexuality is “sinful” (including, among others, the Roman Catholic Church with approximately 51 million followers in the United States and the Baptist Church with an estimated almost 15 million followers in the United States.) .Court DecisionsBurwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014) [resolved a collision of rights case which pitted the beliefs of three “closely held” companies that contraceptive drugs and devices violated their sincerely held religious beliefs that life begins at conception and that it would violate their religion to facilitate access to contraceptives which the ACA (Affordable Care Act) requires corporate medical plans to supply]; Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 138 S. Ct. 1719 (2018) more recently held that the free exercise clause trumped a homosexual customer’s claim of illegality pursuant to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act when a Colorado baker refused to make a cake to celebrate a same-sex couple marriage.Let the Donnybrook begin. And make no mistake, people on both sides of this issue hold very STRONG views about their position.

  2. U.S. Supreme Court: First Amendment Entitled ‘Expressive’ Web Designer to Refuse Service to Same-Sex Couples

    Jackson Lewis P.C.Michelle PhillipsJuly 3, 2023

    e.Smith’s business, 303 Creative LLC, is a “public accommodation” covered by CADA. A public accommodation is defined as “any place of business engaged in any sales to the public and any place offering services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to the public.”Under CADA, public accommodations are prohibited from refusing to serve an individual or group on the basis of sexual orientation. The law also bars a business from announcing an intent to discriminate.Pre-Enforcement ChallengeThis case came before the Court on a “pre-enforcement” challenge, which allows an individual or a business to challenge a law in court before being subject to its enforcement.Smith sought an exemption from CADA enforcement that would allow her to refuse to provide web services for same-sex marriages and to announce that she will not provide web services for same-sex marriages on her website.Previous Challenge to CADAPreviously, in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 138 S. Ct. 1719 (2018), the Court heard a similar case related to a baker who objected to making a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. However, the Court in that instance issued a narrower holding, which did not directly address the First Amendment issue answered in this decision.The DecisionAnalogizing to its previous First Amendment jurisprudence, the Court concluded that requiring a website designer to “defy her conscience about a matter of major significance” would violate the First Amendment’s protections.The Court’s discussion focused heavily on its conclusion that Colorado’s law would require an expressive business to engage in speech that it would not otherwise engage. Such a mandate, ruled the Court, violates the First Amendment’s principle that the government may not “‘alter’ the ‘expressive content’ of [one’s] message.”The parties to this case stipulated that making a website for a same-sex wedding was “expressive.” As a result, the Court was not asked to (and did not) provide guidance or new leg

  3. U.S. Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument in Case Testing Limits of State Anti-Discrimination Law

    Jackson Lewis P.C.Michelle PhillipsDecember 13, 2022

    iness from announcing an intent to discriminate.Pre-Enforcement ChallengeThis case comes before the Court on a “pre-enforcement” challenge. This allows an individual or a business to challenge a law in court before being subject to its enforcement.Smith is seeking exemption from CADA that would allow her to refuse to provide web services for same-sex marriages and to announce that she will not provide web services for same-sex marriages on her website.Oral ArgumentAlthough rooted in First Amendment principles, the two sides’ arguments were diametrically opposed.Through her attorney, Kristen Waggoner of conservative religious legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, Smith asked the Court to rely on its 1995 decision in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Group (515 U.S. 557). (Waggoner came before the Court in a same-sex wedding-related challenge to CADA in 2018, when she represented the petitioner, a baker, in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. Civil Rights Comm’n, 138 S. Ct. 1719.)In Hurley, the Court articulated a two-part test to determine whether a private parade organizer violated Massachusetts public accommodation law when it refused to allow LGBTQ+ groups to march in the Boston St. Patrick’s Day parade. Under the Hurley test, the court first asks whether the services provided is speech. Next, the court asks whether accommodating the speech will affect the business’s message. The Court determined that compelling the parade organizers to allow LGBTQ+ groups to march would be equivalent to compelling the organizers to send a message with which they disagreed.Waggoner argued here that websites are speech and requiring Smith to provide websites for same-sex marriages would be compelling her to speak in support of same-sex marriage in violation of her personal beliefs.Represented by Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson, Colorado argued that the Court’s 2006 decision in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (547 U.S. 47) had greater precedent

  4. Supreme Court Asked To Exempt Creative Businesses From Public Accommodations Laws

    Morgan LewisDecember 8, 2022

    The US Supreme Court heard arguments on December 5, 2022, in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, No. 21-476, which asks whether a website design company has a constitutionally protected free speech right to refuse to design wedding websites for same-sex couples, notwithstanding state public accommodations laws to the contrary. A decision is expected sometime in 2023.The plaintiff in 303 Creative LLC is a graphic design company specializing in websites for weddings. The company wished to put a disclaimer on its website stating that it would refuse service to same-sex couples. The company preemptively sued the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to enjoin it from enforcing provisions of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) that prohibit both the publication of such a notice and the refusal to serve customers based on their sexual orientation.CADA was previously the subject of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. __, 138 S. Ct. 1719 (2018), which involved a bakery owner who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. In that case, the Supreme Court reversed a finding in favor of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission based on the Commission’s specific conduct toward the bakery, without needing to address the underlying constitutionality of CADA.WHETHER AND HOW A BUSINESS IS ‘SPEAKING’ THROUGH ITS SERVICESDuring oral argument, several of the justices struggled with the question of whether a website designer is “speaking” when it creates a website for customers. Justice Kagan noted that many wedding websites are formulaic, and questioned whether following a standardized format with some input from the customer constitutes expressive speech. Similarly, Justice Sotomayor questioned whether the person speaking is the website designer or the customer, observing that the website designer isn’t inviting anyone to the wedding. Justice Gorsuch echoed the concern that there are some creative services where it is ambiguous

  5. Complaints About Cake Did Not Involve The Public Interest

    Allen MatkinsKeith BishopSeptember 8, 2021

    "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"Who knew that the decorative cake baking industry could be so contentious? Three years ago, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. Civil Rights Comm'n, 138 S. Ct. 1719, 201 L. Ed. 2d 35 (2018). Now, the California Court of Appeal has decided that complaints about a cake do not involve the public interest.

  6. EEOC Proposes Update To Its Compliance Manual On Religious Discrimination And Accommodation

    SmithAmundsen LLCJohn HayesDecember 14, 2020

    The proposed changes do not change any existing obligations under Title VII. However, the proposed update reflects the EEOC Chair’s emphasis on religious discrimination and accommodation and a more expansive view of exemptions for religious employers under Title VII based upon a number of cases, including U.S. Supreme Court cases, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014), Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. Civil Rights Comm’n, 138 S.Ct. 1719 (2018), and Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch. v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S.Ct. 679 (2019). The newproposed guidance focuses on four areas:Definitions and Coverage – what constitutes a religion, the religious organization exemption, and the ministerial exception;Employment decisions based on religion, including recruiting, hiring, promotion, discipline, compensation, religious expression within the workplace, customer preference, security requirements, and bona fide occupational qualifications;Religious Discrimination, Harassment, and hostile work environment issues; andReligious reasonable accommodation issues.While it’s impossible to condense the 114 page proposed EEOC Guidance down to a short blog, here are a few points for employers to take note:Coverage – Religious Beliefs – The EEOC defines “religious practices to include moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views.”

  7. OFCCP Publishes Final Regulation Clarifying Religious Exemption Under Executive Order 11246

    Jackson Lewis P.C.Laura MitchellDecember 8, 2020

    This is the final version of OFCCP’s proposed rule published in August 2019.Importantly, the rule specifically acknowledges that“[t]he rule does not affect the overwhelming majority of federal contractors and subcontractors, which are not religious, and OFCCP remains fully committed to enforcing all E.O. 11246 nondiscrimination requirements, including those protecting employees from discrimination on the bases of sexual orientation and gender identity. Even for religious organizations that serve as government contractors or subcontractors, they too must comply with all of E.O. 11246’s nondiscrimination requirements except in some narrow respects under some reasonable circumstances recognized by law.The final rule is a culmination of a multi-year effort by OFCCP to reconcile the Exemption with Supreme Court cases, including those cited in the final rule:Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. Civil RightsComm’n, 138 S. Ct. 1719, 1731 (2018) (holding the government violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment when its decisions are based on hostility to religion or a religious viewpoint);Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S. Ct. 2012, 2022 (2017) (holding the government violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment when it decides to exclude an entity from a generally available public benefit because of its religious character, unless that decision withstands the strictest scrutiny);Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores,, 573 U.S. 682, 719 (2014) (holding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies to federal regulation of the activities of for-profit closely held corporations);Hosanna-Tabor EvangelicalLutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171, 196 (2012) (holding the ministerial exception, grounded in the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment, bars an employment-discrimination suit brought on behalf of a minister against the religious school for which she

  8. EEOC’s Proposed Revision Of Its Guidance Manual On Religious Discrimination

    Jackson Lewis P.C.Michelle PhillipsDecember 1, 2020

    The compliance manual has not been revised since July 2008. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued opinions such as Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014), Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. Civil Rights Comm’n, 138 S.Ct. 1719 (2018), and Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch. v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S.Ct. 679 (2019), and the EEOC believes that these and several others cases have altered protections for employees against religious discrimination in the workplace and enhanced protections for religious employers under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The proposed EEOC Compliance Manual on Religious Discrimination (Guidance), available for public input until December 17, 2020, reflects these changes.

  9. LGBTQ Rights in the Balance: Equality Act Still Needed in the Wake of Bostock

    Sanford Heisler Kimpel LLPAndrew MelzerJune 23, 2020

    The Equality Act helps to plug the hole and to provide a framework for resolution of such questions by limiting the reach of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This provision may be seen to follow from the Supreme Court’s observation in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Rights Comm’n, 138 S. Ct. 1719 (2018) that the First Amendment’s free exercise clause creates no broad religious veto to generally-applicable public accommodations laws,[2] although the Court there left the implications unresolved. Carving out a blanket religious exemption for non-religious business entities would effectively undo anti-discrimination protections entirely—by allowing any entities that want to discriminate against LGBTQ workers, students, and others to couch their actions in religious terms.Fourth, and perhaps most critically, some federal anti-discrimination laws do not presently incorporate protections against gender discrimination—most notably Titles II, III, and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

  10. OFCCP Receives Push Back on Proposed “Religious Freedom” Protections

    Jackson Lewis P.C.Laura A. MitchellSeptember 27, 2019

    In August, OFCCP issued a proposed new rule to clarify aspects of a religious exemption available to federal contractors. According to OFCCP, the rule is intended to provide clarity regarding the scope and application of the existing religious exemption consistent with the evolving landscape of religious freedom- based legal developments, including Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. Civil Rights Comm’n, 138 S. Ct. 1719, 1731 (2018), Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S. Ct. 2012, 2022 (2017), Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2751, 2775 (2014), Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171, 196 (2012). OFCCP stated the holdings of these recent Supreme Court decisionshave reminded the federal government of its duty to protect religious exercise – and not to impede it.During the recent public comment period, OFCCP received more than 100,000 comments on the proposed rule, including comments from industry groups and the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.