Thursday, December 15, 2022

Catholic Charities Is Not Exempt from Unemployment Compensation Statute

In Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. State of Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, (WI App., Dec. 13, 2022), a Wisconsin state appellate court held that Catholic Charities and its sub-entities are not exempt from the Wisconsin Unemployment Compensation Act as organizations "operated primarily for religious purposes." It emphasized that the statute should be "liberally construed to effect unemployment compensation coverage for workers who are economically dependent upon others in respect to their wage-earning status." The court said that it must look to the work of Catholic Charities, not the Catholic Church itself, to determine whether there is an exemption.  Deciding that the court should look both to motives and activities, the court concluded that while Catholic Charities has a religious motivation for its work, the nature of its activities is not religious.  The court said in part:

[T]he activities of CCB and its sub-entities are the provision of charitable social services that are neither inherently or primarily religious activities. CCB and its sub-entities do not operate to inculcate the Catholic faith; they are not engaged in teaching the Catholic religion, evangelizing, or participating in religious rituals or worship services with the social service participants; they do not require their employees, participants, or board members to be of the Catholic faith; participants are not required to attend any religious training, orientation, or services; their funding comes almost entirely from government contracts or private companies, not from the Diocese of Superior; and they do not disseminate any religious material to participants. Nor do CCB and its sub-entities provide program participants with an “education in the doctrine and discipline of the church.”...

UPDATE: On Feb. 9, 2023, the original opinion was withdrawn and was replaced by this opinion on Feb. 14, 2023.