{"id":26480,"date":"2025-12-09T18:50:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T18:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=26480"},"modified":"2025-12-09T18:50:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T18:50:14","slug":"scotus-delivers-key-ruling-in-closely-watched-case-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=26480","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS Delivers Key Ruling in Closely Watched Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ronald Hittle was sacked as Stockton, California\u2019s fire chief after being accused of wrongdoing. One letter called him a \u201ccorrupt, racist, lying, religious fanatic.\u201d One reason he was fired was that he and other managers went to a church-sponsored seminar for Christian leaders during business hours.<\/p>\n

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Hittle tried to sue, saying that he was fired because he was a Christian, but lower courts said that his case wasn\u2019t solid enough to go to trial. Hittle says that the Supreme Court\u2019s test for judging accusations of job discrimination, which was set up more than 50 years ago, has to be looked at again.<\/p>\n

But on Monday, the Supreme Court turned down his case, avoiding a possible fight over religious discrimination at work at a time when the Court is also looking into issues related to religion in schools and tax breaks for religious groups.<\/p>\n

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch said they would have accepted the case. Thomas said that Hittle had enough proof of discriminatory intent and that his case may have made it apparent when workplace discrimination lawsuits should go forward, according to the source.<\/p>\n

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Hittle was fired in 2011 after an inquiry by the city concluded that he was not productive or good at making decisions, did not report time off, showed partiality, and went to a religious event with other managers while on the job, among other things.<\/p>\n

USA Today said that Hittle went to the gathering, which was a church-sponsored conference for Christian leaders, at the city\u2019s request for leadership training.<\/p>\n

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Hittle says he was fired because he went to the Global Leadership Summit. He says the deputy city manager accused him of being part of a \u201cChristian Coalition.\u201d<\/p>\n

His lawyers told the court, \u201cAn employer can\u2019t automatically avoid liability just because it had legal reasons as well as discriminatory ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The city says that Hittle is lying about what the appeals court said and that there is no reason to look at the important 1973 judgment in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green again, which is a \u201csettled touchstone of employment-discrimination law.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to USA Today, the city\u2019s lawyers told the court, \u201cThe City\u2019s reasons for terminating (Hittle) were well-documented and entirely appropriate for the Ninth Circuit to rely upon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Supreme Court also turned down an appeal this month that challenged Delaware\u2019s ban on assault-style rifles and large-capacity ammunition magazines. They also turned down a lawsuit about Maryland\u2019s handgun licensing requirements.<\/p>\n

By doing this, the Court didn\u2019t have to deal with two important decisions over the controversial topic of gun rights.<\/p>\n

The judges turned down an appeal from a group of gun lovers and organizations that support gun rights. They wanted to stop Delaware\u2019s ban on \u201cassault weapons\u201d and magazines that can carry more than 17 bullets. This was after a lower court decided not to issue a preliminary injunction.<\/p>\n

Reuters said that these kinds of guns have been used in a number of mass shootings in the U.S., although FBI crime statistics show that most gun-related murders are conducted with pistols.<\/p>\n

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The judges also turned down an appeal by the gun rights group Maryland Shall Issue and other plaintiffs. They were appealing a lower court\u2019s decision that affirmed the state\u2019s licensing legislation as being in keeping with the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.<\/p>\n

The judges turned down these two cases, but they didn\u2019t do anything about two other appeals that were challenging Maryland\u2019s ban on assault rifles and one in Rhode Island that was about large-capacity ammunition magazines.<\/p>\n

Since 2008, the Supreme Court has always taken an originalist view of gun rights in important decisions, thanks to its 6-3 conservative majority.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Delaware passed gun safety rules that make it illegal to own certain semi-automatic \u201cassault\u201d firearms, such the AR-15 and AK-47. However, those who owned these guns before the law went into effect can keep them if they meet certain conditions. The law also makes it illegal to have magazines with a lot of rounds, which affects devices that were owned before the law went into effect.<\/p>\n

The people who are fighting against the law are people from the state who want to buy the restricted guns or magazines, a gun dealer, the Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ronald Hittle was sacked as Stockton, California\u2019s fire chief after being accused of wrongdoing. One letter called him a \u201ccorrupt, racist, lying, religious fanatic.\u201d One reason he was fired was … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26481,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26480\/revisions\/26481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}