California et al. v. Grace Brethren Church et al. (457 U.S. 393)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 18, 1982 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 457 U.S. 393 · 102 S. Ct. 2498
- Decided
- June 18, 1982
- Term
- October Term 1981
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice O'Connor
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court. The principal question presented by the parties to these appeals is whether certain state and federal statutes violate the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment by requiring religious schools unaffiliated with any church to pay unemployment insurance taxes. We do not reach this substantive question, however, holding instead that the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1341, deprived the District Court of jurisdiction to hear these challenges. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment below. W Last Term, in St. Martin Evangelical Lutheran Church v. South Dakota, 451 U. S. 772 (1981), this Court considered statutory and constitutional challenges to provisions of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA), 26 U. S. C. §§3301-3311 (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). Because the present claims involve the same provisions that we interpreted in St. Martin, we recount only briefly the substance and legislative history of the relevant statutes before turning to the facts in the present cases. A In FUTA, Congress has authorized a cooperative federal-state scheme to provide benefits to unemployed workers. The Act requires employers to pay an excise tax on wages paid to employees in “covered” employment, but entitles them to a credit of up to 90% of the federal tax for contributions they have paid into federally approved state…
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