Doe v. Catholic Relief Servs.

484 Md. 640

300 A.3d 116

John DOE

v.CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES

Misc. No. 28, Sept. Term, 2022

Supreme Court of Maryland.

August 14, 2023

Argued by Anthony J. May ( Eve L. Hill, Lauren DiMartino, Brown, Goldstein & Levy, LLP, Baltimore, MD; Shannon C. Leary and James A. Hill, Gilbert Employment Law, P.C., Silver Spring, MD), on brief, for Appellant.

Argued by Joseph C. Dugan ( David W. Kinkopf, Collin J. Wojciechowski, and Emily A. Levy, Gallagher Evelius & Jones LLP, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Appellee.

Amicus Curiae The Attorney General of Maryland: Steven M. Sullivan, Esquire, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, 200 Saint Paul Place, 20th Floor, Baltimore, MD, 21202.

Amici Curiae ACLU of Maryland, FreeState Justice, GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Employment Law Project, and Public Justice Center: John R. Grimm, Esquire, Courtney Miller, Esquire, HWG LLP, 1919 M Street, N.W., 8th Floor, Washington, D.C., 20036, Hayley Hahn, Esquire, Debra Gardner, Esquire, Murnaghan Appellate Advocacy Fellow, Public Justice Center, 201 N. Charles Street, Suite 1200, Baltimore, MD 21201.

Amici Curiae The Maryland Catholic Conference, LLC, The Catholic Benefits Association, and Maryland Bible Society: Thomas J. Schetelich, Esquire, Ferguson, Schetelich & Ballew, P.A., 100 S. Charles Street, Suite 1401, Baltimore, MD, 21201-2725, Andrew Nussbaum, Esquire, Nussbaum Gleason PLLC, 2 North Cascade Avenue, Suite 1430, Colorado Springs, CO, 80903.

Argued before: Fader, C.J., Watts, Hotten, Booth, Biran, Gould, Eaves, JJ.

Biran, J.

I Introduction

This Court is authorized to "answer a question of law certified to it by a court of the United States or by an appellate court of another state or of a tribe, if the answer may be determinative of an issue in pending litigation in the certifying court and there is no controlling appellate decision, constitutional provision, or statute of this State." Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. ("CJP") § 12-603 (2020 Repl. Vol).

On February 21, 2023, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland certified the following three questions to this Court:

1. Whether the prohibition against sex discrimination in the Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act, Md. Code Ann., State Gov't § 20-606, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

2. Whether, under Md. Code Ann., State Gov't § 20-604(2), the Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act applies to a religious corporation, association, education institution, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular sexual orientation or gender identity to perform work connected with all activities of the religious entity or only those that are religious in nature.

3. Whether the prohibition against sex discrimination in the Maryland Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. § 3-304, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

We heard oral argument concerning the certified questions on June 2, 2023. We now provide our answers below.

II Background

A. Statement of Facts

"The court certifying a question of law" to this Court "shall issue a certification order." CJP § 12-605(a). The certification order must contain "[t]he facts relevant to the question, showing fully the nature of the controversy out of which the question arose[.]" Id. § 12-606(a)(2). We now summarize the facts provided by the certifying court.

Catholic Relief Services-United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ("CRS"), the defendant in the federal lawsuit, is a 501(c)(3) Catholic Church social services agency constituted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. CRS follows the Catholic teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman and ordered to the procreation of children.

John Doe, the plaintiff in federal court, is a gay, cisgender man who is married to another man. In 2016, Mr. Doe attended a job fair where he met CRS recruiter Anna Cowell. The two discussed generally available positions at CRS, and Ms. Cowell later followed up with Mr. Doe about pursuing a data analyst position with CRS. In his conversations with Ms. Cowell, Mr. Doe asked whether CRS would provide health benefits to his same-sex spouse. Ms. Cowell told Mr. Doe that all dependents are covered. In June 2016, CRS hired Mr. Doe as a Program Data Analyst. In this position, Mr. Doe worked on advancing and facilitating select business functions within CRS's Gateway business platform and project portfolio system through an online platform known as Salesforce. ¹

Over the course of his employment, Mr. Doe has held various positions at CRS, including Program Data Analyst, Gateway User Support (Advisor I), and Gateway Data Quality and Analytics Advisor (Advisor II). In those positions, Mr. Doe's responsibilities included, among other things, reporting and data analytics, providing support to CRS Gateway users, collaborating with other team members regarding development of content for trainings and presentations, and making system enhancements to Gateway. Mr. Doe's responsibilities concerning the improvement, enhancement, design, use, and training of the Gateway system mirrored those of his straight colleagues.

Upon Mr. Doe's hiring in June 2016, he enrolled his same-sex spouse through CRS's benefits enrollment system. CRS accepted the enrollment. Several months after this enrollment, Debra Jones, then Benefits and Staff Care Manager for CRS, alerted her superior, David Palasits, Acting Executive Vice President for Human Resources, that Mr. Doe had been misinformed about his spouse's eligibility for benefits and that Mr. Doe's spouse had been enrolled in error. On November 10, 2016, Ms. Jones informed Mr. Doe that CRS had mistakenly approved the enrollment of his same-sex spouse and that CRS did not provide spousal health benefits to employees in same-sex relationships.

CRS personnel and Mr. Doe subsequently conferred about a potential coverage alternative, but the parties were unable to reach an agreement. CRS terminated Mr. Doe's spouse's health benefits, effective October 1, 2017. CRS did so because it considers the provision of such benefits to be contrary to its Catholic values.

On June 1, 2018, Mr. Doe timely filed a Charge of Discrimination with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") against CRS. On May 27, 2020, the EEOC issued a right to sue letter.

On June 12, 2020, Mr. Doe filed a lawsuit against CRS in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. His complaint includes claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. , the federal Equal Pay Act ("EPA"), 29 U.S.C. § 206(d)(1), as well as claims under the Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act, Md. Code Ann., State Gov't ("SG") § 20-606(a)(1)(i) (2021 Repl. Vol., 2022 Supp.) ("MFEPA"), and the Maryland Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. ("LE") § 3-304(b)(1) (2016 Repl. Vol.) ("MEPEWA"). ²

The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. On August 3, 2022, the district court granted in part and denied in part the parties’ cross-motions. The court ruled that CRS violated Title VII by revoking Mr. Doe's dependent health insurance because of his sex – in particular, because he was a man married to another man. The court also granted summary judgment to Mr. Doe on his federal EPA claim, on the ground that CRS "provides dependent benefits for the male spouses of female employees who perform work of similar skill and effort as Mr. Doe, but refused to provide such benefits to Mr. Doe because he is a man married to a man[.]"

As for Mr. Doe's claim under MFEPA, the court held that interpreting the statute would require guidance from the Supreme Court of Maryland, given that it would implicate important state public policy issues. The district court initially ruled on the MEPEWA claim, holding that CRS violated MEPEWA because a woman married to a man would not have lost spousal health insurance benefits as Mr. Doe did. On August 15, 2022, CRS moved for reconsideration of the district court's ruling on Mr. Doe's MEPEWA claim. On January 11, 2023, the district court granted CRS's motion for reconsideration and ordered the parties to confer and file proposed questions of law with respect to MFEPA and MEPEWA. On February 21, 2023, the district court certified the above three questions of law to this Court.

III Standard of Review

2 3 "In responding to a certification from another court, this Court resolves only issues of Maryland law, not questions of fact." Tapestry, Inc. v. Factory Mut. Ins. Co. , 482 Md. 223, 238, 286 A.3d 1044 (2022) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In addition, we "may go no further than the question certified." Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). As we are deciding questions of law and not reviewing a lower court ruling, our analysis necessarily is de novo . Dickson v. United States , 478 Md. 255, 260, 274 A.3d 366 (2022).

IV Discussion

5 6 All three questions before us involve issues of statutory interpretation. Our goal in construing a statute is "to ascertain and effectuate the real and actual intent of the Legislature."

Lockshin v. Semsker , 412 Md. 257, 274, 987 A.2d 18 (2010). We "begin with the plain language of the statute" and the "ordinary, popular understanding of the English language dictates interpretation of its terminology." Buarque de Macedo v. Auto. Ins. Co. Hartford , 480 Md. 200, 215, 280 A.3d 679 (2022) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "If the statutory language is unambiguous and clearly consistent with the statute's apparent purpose, the inquiry as to legislative intent ends ordinarily and we apply the statute as written, without resort to other rules of construction." Id. (cleaned up).

8 9 10 "We constru...