Behrend v. San Francisco Zen Center, No. 23-15399 (9th Cir.)

All Rise Trial & Appellate represents Alexander Behrend, who was fired from the Zen Center on account of his disabilities. The District Court granted judgment to the Zen Center by applying the “ministerial exception,” which protects religious organizations’ autonomy over who plays key roles for them. But Behrend, who worked in the kitchen and guest house, did not play such a role. The appeal addresses the proper scope of the ministerial exception in a rapidly-shifting area of law.

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Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, No. 22-193 (U.S.)

All Rise Trial & Appellate filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Legal Aid Society and the National Employment Law Project, explaining why the atextual glosses that virtually every Circuit has applied to Title VII has allowed odious discrimination in American workplaces in defiance of the plain text of the statute. It highlights numerous stories of litigants who faced explicit discrimination but had no legal remedy because of the state of the law, and urges the Court to restore Title VII to its textual bounds.

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Kozicki v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, No. 1469 CD 2021 (Pa. Commw. Ct.)

All Rise Trial & Appellate represents Carisa Kozicki, a small business owner whose Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claim the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry and UCBR repeatedly miscalculated. The miscalculation owed both to legal errors concerning the PUA program, and due process violations in how the Department processes records through its new electronic portal.

Update: All Rise has prevailed, and the Commonwealth Court has ruled that the Department’s practice of declining to transmit all of a claimant’s records violates due process.

Ireland v. United States, No. 23-1163 (Fed. Cir.)

All Rise Trial & Appellate filed a brief on behalf of the Unemployed Workers United explaining the importance of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance to low wage workers early in the pandemic, and the harms caused by the Department of Labor’s unwillingness to consider other ways to get workers federally-obligated money when some states unilaterally and prematurely decided to stop processing PUA benefits for unemployed workers.

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William Penn Sch. Dist., et al. v. Pennsylvania Dep’t of Educ., et al., No. 587 M.D. 2014 (Pa. Commw. Ct.)

All Rise Trial & Appellate filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Pennsylvania League of Urban Schools, explaining that the standard the Commonwealth Court ultimately used to assess the claims in this long-running case about the Commonwealth’s school funding scheme made sense and fit with PLUS member districts’ experiences. The brief also underscores for the Court that PLUS districts’ students can and do succeed when given the resources to support them.

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The Atlanta Opera and Make-up Artists and Hair Stylists Union, Local 798, IATSE, No. 10-RC-276292 (N.L.R.B.)

With Philadelphia Legal Assistance, All Rise Trial & Appellate filed a brief on behalf of misclassified workers as the Board reconsiders its standard for assessing employee vs. contractor status. The brief explains harms to workers from misclassification, including as compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic—when many workers were laid off from their jobs and could not access unemployment benefits because their employers had misclassified them as contractors.

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Crawford v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, et al., No. 19 EAP 2022 (Pa.)

All Rise represented the Local Governments and Officials from cities and towns across the Commonwealth urging the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to properly interpret the state’s firearm preemption statute to allow some limited local regulations. The comments explains that even allowing Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to regulate would limit spillover effects of gun violence, and observes that contemplated local regulations would not impose intra-state burdens on lawful firearm owners.

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Valencia v. Attorney General, No. 22-1192 (3d Cir.)

All Rise Trial & Appellate co-counseled with the Nationalities Service Center to oppose immediate deportation of an immigrant and stay removal, explaining why federal courts retain jurisdiction to hear appeals of reasonable fear determination even when the subject of the determination has had a prior removal order reinstated. The brief rejects the Government’s contention that federal courts lack any jurisdiction to review INA decisions for such immigrants, and the lawlessness that would result.

Update: the Government withdrew its motion to dismiss, and has given Mr. Valencia his demanded relief in immigration court

German Santos v. Attorney General, No. 22-2072 (3d Cir.)

All Rise Trial & Appellate filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Capital Area Immigrants Rights Coalition, explaining that the BIA regularly fails to defer to state law to the detriment of immigrants, including, as here, ignoring a clear Pennsylvania Supreme Court holding about the elements of a drug offense. The brief also explains why federal courts should scrutinize the BIA’s uncritical deference to uncorroborated police reports, which harms immigrants.

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