Any of our attorneys care to take a stab at the decision in this case? Reading the court's explanation makes me dizzy.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/4pm/on...gles19ww.shtml
Court: Eagles can't exclude women
By PAUL QUEARY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
OLYMPIA -- Washington law bars the Fraternal Order of Eagles from excluding women, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The case stems from a dispute between two Washington chapters of the Eagles that admitted women during the mid-1990s, and the national organization, which reversed a policy allowing women in 1998.
Nine women and two local chapters in Tenino and Whidbey Island, sued under the Washington Law Against Discrimination, which guarantees "full enjoyment of any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, or privileges of any place of public resort, accommodation, assemblage, or amusement."
A trial court agreed, but the Court of Appeals sided with the 1.6 million-member national organization's argument that it was entitled to an exemption. The law exempts: "any institute, bona fide club, or place of accommodation, which is by its nature distinctly private, including fraternal organizations."
But the high court sided with the local chapters.
"It does not seem logical that the Legislature would exempt only those groups organized for a common purpose which are distinctly private, and at the same time allow a group similarly organized for a common purpose to avoid proving its private status simply by designating itself a 'fraternal organization," Justice Charles Smith wrote in the 9-2 decision. "Interpreting (the law) to unconditionally exempt groups merely designating themselves as 'fraternal organizations' undermines the purpose of the WLAD to prevent and eliminate discrimination in all public settings."
The case is Fraternal Order of Eagles v. Grand Aerie, No. 71786-9.
Threaded Mode