INDIANAPOLIS — A federal appeals court ruled Thursday in favor of Roncalli High School in a lawsuit filed by a former guidance counselor who was fired for being in a same-sex marriage.
Last September, a federal court ruled the high school was within its rights to let Shelly Fitzgerald go because of a "ministerial exception." Fitzgerald was placed on administrative leave by Roncalli in 2018 and filed the lawsuit in 2019.
The appeal was filed last October by Americans United, an organization that advocates for separation of church and state. The group argued that the ministerial exception circumvents workers' civil rights.
The ministerial exception is a legal doctrine that allows religious institutions to be exempt from federal employment discrimination laws. It's meant to prevent the government from interfering with religious institutions, which would violate the First Amendment.
Fitzgerald's suit claimed she was subsequently banned from campus and fired from her job over her same-sex marriage. She had sought a jury trial and damages for back pay with interest, punitive damages for emotional distress and mental anguish, losses she has sustained and will sustain and attorney fees.
In Thursday's ruling, the appeals court concluded "there is no daylight" between Fitzgerald's case and a similar suit filed by former Roncalli guidance counselor Lynn Starkey. An appeals court also ruled in favor of the high school in that case last July.
"Our precedent makes clear that Fitzgerald was a minister at Roncalli and that the ministerial exception bars this suit," the court's opinion read. "But cases like today's - involving two plaintiffs with the same title, at the same school, performing the same duties, and bringing the same claims in our court - are rare."
Fitzgerald has 90 days to appeal Thursday's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.