Two Roman Catholic women fired from their jobs at a dog racing track because they refused to work on Christmas day were stripped of a jury award when the Supreme Judicial Court reversed a lower court ruling.
Thursday's ruling ended a case which has been an 11-year court drama that has been before the SJC, the state's highest court three times, stirred public debate and spurred legislation on Beacon Hill and in the U.S. Congress.
Thursday's ruling related to a 2000 jury award from Bristol Superior Court, in which a jury awarded $29,600 in damages to Kathleen Pielech, and $28,000 to Patricia Reed, who refused to work at Raynham-Taunton Greyhound Park on Dec. 25, 1992. The jury awarded the money on the basis of a 1997 law crafted in response to Pielech and Reed's firing.
The SJC ruling found that the 1997 law could not be applied retroactively to the 1992 firings, and invalidated the jury award.
"There is no indication that any significant number of persons will benefit from or need the retroactivity provision, and indeed, there is every indication that the retroactivity provision was enacted solely to benefit these plaintiffs," Justice Roderick L. Ireland wrote.
Reed and Pielech sued Massasoit Greyhound Inc., the owners of the track, after they were fired for refusing to work, alleged they were victims of discrimination.
State law at the time forbade employers from discriminating against employees for actions that were "required" by their religious beliefs. On that basis, a Superior Court ruled against the two women, saying that Roman Catholicism did not require the plaintiffs to abstain from working on Christmas Day.
When the women appealed to the SJC, the court struck down the state law in 1996 as unconstitutional. The legislature created a new law in 1997 to protect any worker with "sincerely held" religious beliefs, whether or not those beliefs are part of religious dogma. The state law included the retroactivity clause that the five-judge SJC panel struck down on Thursday.
Joel A. Kozol, the attorney for Massasoit Greyhound, told the Boston Globe that he and the company were "extremely pleased" by the ruling.