Alcazar
Alcazar v. Corp. of the Catholic Archbishop
Opinion
Opinion
BEEZER, J.
Lindsay Halm, Schroeter, Goldmark & Bender, Seattle, WA, for the plaintiff-appellant.
Karen A. Kalzer, Patterson Buchanan Fobes Leitch & Kalzer, Inc., M. Colleen Kinerk, Cable Langenbach Kinerk & Bauer, LLP, Seattle, WA, for the defendants-appellees.
Before: ROBERT R. BEEZER, RONALD M. GOULD, and RICHARD C. TALLMAN, Circuit Judges.
BEEZER, Circuit Judge:
"The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach." Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 18 , 67 S.Ct. 504 , 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947). The interplay between the First Amendment's Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses creates an exception to an otherwise fully applicable statute if the statute would interfere with a religious organization's employment decisions regarding its ministers. Bollard v. Cal. Province of the Soc'y of Jesus, 196 F.3d 940 , 944, 946-47 (9th Cir. 1999). This "ministerial exception" helps to preserve the wall between church and state from even the mundane government intrusion presented here. In this case, plaintiff Cesar Rosas seeks pay for the overtime hours he worked as a seminarian in a Catholic church in…