Court Opinion

ID: 9760430
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:55:16.428635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:12.242144
License: Public Domain

BYER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent and would affirm the decision to grant unemployment compensation benefits. Because unemployment compensation benefits are paid by the state, I believe that a religious teaching, standing alone, cannot be the predicate for a determination by the state to deny benefits based upon willful misconduct. To hold otherwise would involve the unemployment compensation authorities and the courts in having to make determinations based upon religious principles rather than objective legal principles and would result in treating employees of religious institutions differently from employees of non-religious employers in determining entitlement to unemployment compensation benefits.
Furthermore, I find the majority’s decision very troubling when I consider how we draw the appropriate lines in cases which might arise in the future. For example, what would be the result if the religious teaching in question were that the employee could not marry a person of a different religion? What would be the result if the religious teaching were that an employee could not marry a person of a different race? I would like to think we would hold that the state may not deny payment of benefits on the basis of willful misconduct in these hypothetical cases, but on what basis would we distinguish this case?
I think the best way to answer these questions is on an objective basis, treating employees of religious employers and non-religious employers equally for purposes of paying unemployment compensation benefits. I have no doubt that the work rule involved in this case would not be a basis for *455the state to deny benefits on the basis of willful misconduct if it were imposed by a non-religious employer. I would hold no differently here.1

. I do not imply that a religious institution has no right to terminate an employee for violating religious teachings. See Little v. Wuerl, 929 F.2d 944 (3d Cir.1991). That is a far different question from the question in this case, which is whether the state may deny benefits based upon a religious teaching. The same considerations of avoiding excessive entanglement which motivated the Third Circuit in Little to hold that Title VII does not apply to this situation should cause us to affirm the award of benefits here.