Petitions of the week: Religious employees, religious developers and more

This week we highlight cert petitions pending before the Supreme Court that ask the court to assess, among other things, claims of religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and standing requirements under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. In Dalberiste v. GLE Associates Inc., a Seventh-Day Adventist claims he did not receive a reasonable accommodation from a Florida firm so that he could have Saturdays off to observe the Sabbath. He asks the court to reconsider Trans World Airlines Inc. v. Hardison, which held that, under Title VII, an employer need not accommodate religious practices if doing so would impose more than a “de minimis” burden on the employer. And in Congregation Rabbinical College of Tartikov Inc. v. Village of Pomona, New York, a Jewish organization seeking to build a rabbinical college was blocked from doing so by local zoning laws. The organization, which claims the laws target its religious exercise, wants the court to resolve a circuit split over the circumstances in which land owners have standing to challenge land-use restrictions under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

These and other petitions of the week are below the jump:

Dalberiste v. GLE Associates Inc.
19-1461
Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should reconsider Trans World Airlines Inc. v. Hardison and set a proper legal standard for determining what constitutes an “undue hardship” under Title VII.

Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas v. Robert R. McCormick Foundation
20-8
Issues: (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit correctly held, in conflict with the decisions of four other U.S. courts of appeal and of the Supreme Court, that the presumption against preemption of state law does not apply to creditor-rights claims once federal bankruptcy law has been invoked; (2) whether the 2nd Circuit correctly held that laws allowing creditors to avoid certain fraudulent transfers, which long have existed in every state, are preempted because they are an obstacle to the “purposes and objectives” of 11 U.S.C. § 546(e), notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s unanimous holding in Merit Management Group, LP v. FTI Consulting Inc. that Section 546(e) does not have the purpose that the 2nd Circuit ascribed to it; and (3) whether, notwithstanding the holding in Merit that Section 546(e) does not exempt fraudulent transfers from avoidance merely because a financial institution acted as a conduit, the 2nd Circuit correctly held that Section 546(e) does exempt certain fraudulent transfers from avoidance if executed via a bank as a conduit, on the ground, left open in Merit, that the bank’s customer is itself a “financial institution.”

Kollaritsch v. Michigan State University Board of Trustees
20-10
Issue: Whether, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 6th and 8th Circuits hold, in disagreement with the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 1st, 10th and 11th Circuits, Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education’s “vulnerability” prong requires plaintiffs to prove additional, post-notice sexual harassment in order to state a claim for damages under Title IX.

Alexis v. Barr
20-11
Issue: Whether, when a state’s definition of a drug expressly sweeps in more substances than the federal definition, a noncitizen convicted of possessing that drug bears the burden of showing in deportation proceedings under 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(B)(i) that the state has actually prosecuted a criminal defendant with respect to one of the non-federally-controlled substances.

Congregation Rabbinical College of Tartikov Inc. v. Village of Pomona, New York
20-14
Issue: Whether, under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act’s substantial-burdens provision, an owner of real property seeking to use such property for religious exercise has Article III standing to challenge a municipality’s zoning law that prohibits outright the owner’s proposed land use without first being required to either apply for permits or variances that the municipality has no power to grant or to seek a legislative change to the zoning law from the municipality.