religious non profits from the definition of employer under the w only i'm going to spend some time on the statutory and regulatory issue but it will be quite cursory unless court has questions that i have time to address  employers are covered by the statute religious nonprofit organizations and since the charges filed by ms macdonald were against churches is the court held that it was one hundred eighty days  washington human rights commission which is the applicable efi agency in this case as a completely effete fi agency and had made no exceptions under its regulations designating it merely a notice agency for p claim a person which could include any one of those and if may not retaliate against someone who engages in protected activities that she was complaining that she was being sexually harassed this is the district court for the western district suzanne mcdonald against the green church and the pacific northwest presbyterian the presbyterian church  defendants yes yes your honor in that and but that's only part of the claims here are there are other pending claims still going forward and there's a one more motion partial summary judgment motion pending i g supreme court in commercial office products talked about when is it you should give deference to the e e o c his determination of the time and the time requirements for the charge and just because this doesn't have time or expertise to figure out complicated issues of state law that might apply to the timeliness of the charge and undermines the administration and force me to title seven to burden the e e o c with that on a case by case basis administers the title seven time requirements instead of doing a case by case basis it takes a look at their state and local f e a agencies makes regulatory determinations actions against the virginia government so they make exceptions in this and they do that state by state not case by case by case otherwise it would be unworkable so the e e o c has made this determination in its rays that washington i tortured find that the washington jurisdiction isn't completely matching up with title seven's distinction still that's too complicated an issue on a case by case basis for the us to determine time limitations so i don't and i don't think there's any factual record that needs to be developed in a trial court that would pertain to that issue so turning to the constitutional issue  the exemption is a flat out blanket exemption for religious nonprofit organizations it is not a neutral exemption and i think that's important in the court's analysis under the lemon an secular purpose should be and the language itself is a straight forward forward preference for a religion as the supreme court in a truce as it does it makes practical sense to scrutinize states agree so as well if we look at the context we know that the washington and constitution provides more protection both for free expression and the separation of church and state and  neutral statute it's instantly benefits religion it's more like in the texas monthly case where there was just a flat out blanket exception for four religions what's a defense in this state really attempt to do is import the ministerial exception or the expanded ministerial exception into the language of the exemption but that is not there and what it really does here is it's a legislative if it were a legislative attempt to balance those interests like in carter and like in calderon there would have to be some vallance thing that the legislature and gauged justified construe it as a jennet call to the scope of the title seven exemption because we know that's constitutional or strikes me as exemption altogether unlike the legislature engaged in a balancing of those interests which is what i think agency without subject matter jurisdiction over a charge such as an agency which does not cover sex discrimination or a nonprofit corporation  this is the section that deals with procedure for the prevention of unlawful employment practices this is what litigant has to go through to perfect their claim make sure it's time to file that's the section that one six zero one point one three deals with one six there is no intention pro one sixty one point one three to be part of the qualification process for becoming an  g you would find a new ones and a point seven for you would expect there to be a notice agency for purposes of the following lack of subject matter jurisdictional areas such as for religious organization which the human rights commission lacked first action over small employers to fifteen or less employees and the court didn't look to one of six point one seven four to determine whether it was the one in thirty days or that was the three hundred days the court at the state law and the court said because state law exempts small employers the one hundred eighty day deadline applies not the three hundred and interesting enough illinois human rights then the court distinguished its case from a case like ours that said in those cases four were were the one hundred eighty day period was applied and those cases it seems that a determination of the state agencies jurisdictional reach issue and that is that the washing courts have already squarely dealt with this issue of whether in a car in this context a person can be expanded to include an employer employee relationship and the court in mallow versus alaska do division one case the court said no the metal at scholar but the doctrine of the construction of a jest i'm generous or of the same time says that whenever you have a term that is that is general and private followed by specific terms persons of the employer you construe the broad term to be limited by the more narrow terms otherwise you read the specific terms right out of the statute and  for purposes of section forty nine sixty two to one of which is the plaintiff is arguing that that has to be limited to an employer employee relationship person can't be broadly expanded to the employer employee present about whether or not enough that we could if we were so inclined depend on the other all proven absolutely i believe that all of this documentation is in the lower court record that has been presented to you as part of the excerpt of the record and you could is it purely a legal issue i don't think so any there's an irony i know what i'm concerned about the ministerial privilege in determining you know what i mean whether we have we'd have to develop any facts about  and the true general argued that there are facts that need to be developed as to whether the contest statute is constitutional as applied in this situation we don't have the evidence related to how the ministerial exception would fully play out here i think this case is much more here if nowhere else in the relation between church and state good fences make good neighbors and that's what we've got with this constitutional exemption we've got a good fence between church and state which might be why every one of the nine states in the ninth circuit has a religious employer exemption and a majority of those states have an exemption like washington's that in that excludes all forms of discrimination not just like titles that the majority of them are just like washington's and exclud california case or the california section and posit said that even though california had the broader statute that they found that it was still that it still survives a lemon test now i cannot find any case where the court actually looked at the tax type cases because instead of conferring a benefit it was relieving governmental interference which is a very different situation and that's what we have here and that's what the court recognized in b different situations in conclusion the religious employer exemption has been a part of washington civil rights law sense it's definition and it's survived all challenges exception applies to his facts as a matter of constitutional law question before the court is what is the scope of the ladies exemption which is much broader than them and if it's construed to be the ministerial exception a kind of protection or balancing of interests to churches who don't have clergy there are many many religious views who do not have clergy plus i think that the state has pretty much conceded that there may be unconstitutional the exemption is rivaling written and would probably be on constitutional in our views only that where it touches on a minister of the church's relationship with the and vance's religion and goes wave way farther than the corn amos which only exempted the religious affiliation of the employees that are hired in this case what that the exemption as it would be read here would exempt all religious employees from any sort of discrimination in any situation regardless of whether a minister is involved or not and if it's limited to ministers it's discriminatory under our under