The First Amendment has limits – and a California court just drew the line
A California court ruled on March 2 that religious employers cannot use the First Amendment to automatically dodge wage claims against workers.
The decision, handed down by the California Court of Appeal, puts a meaningful limit on a legal shield that religious organizations have previously used to sidestep employment discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuits. For HR professionals at faith-based employers, the message is clear: the First Amendment is not a blanket excuse for skipping out on wage obligations.
The case centers on Michael Ehrenkranz, who joined the San Francisco Zen Center in 2016 as a residential trainee. The Zen Center, one of the largest Sōtō Zen Buddhist churches in North America, operates three temples across California. It also runs a substantial commercial operation, renting rooms to overnight guests and hosting corporate conferences for companies including Google and Facebook.
Ehrenkranz spent over two years at the Center, working in housekeeping, the kitchen, the garden, and even doing childcare for senior staff. In exchange, he received room, board, and a monthly stipend that started at $175 and peaked at $245. In November 2018, he left. In August 2020, he filed a wage claim, arguing he was owed proper minimum wages, overtime, and other compensation for the work he performed.
The Labor Commissioner agreed and awarded him $81,170.23. The Zen Center appealed, and a trial court threw out his claims entirely, ruling that a First Amendment doctrine known as the ministerial exception barred them. That doctrine, first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in cases involving a church school teacher and Catholic school educators, was designed to protect religious organizations' right to hire and fire their religious leaders without government interference.
The problem, the appeals court found on March 2, is that the trial court stretched that doctrine too far. The ministerial exception was never meant to cover every employment dispute involving someone who qualifies as a minister. It was designed for cases where a court would have to wade into religious doctrine to resolve the dispute. Ehrenkranz's claims – unpaid wages for cleaning guest bathrooms and chopping vegetables for paying visitors – required no such inquiry.
The court noted that the Zen Center itself had acknowledged that resolving the wage dispute would not require any court to answer religious questions. That concession, the court said, was telling.
The ruling aligns with a companion case, Lorenzo v. San Francisco Zen Center, decided last November, which reached the same conclusion on the ministerial exception. The two decisions did diverge on a separate procedural question, but on the core issue of whether the First Amendment shields religious employers from wage claims, both California courts landed in the same place. The California Supreme Court has since agreed to take up that broader legal question in the Lorenzo case, meaning the final word is still to come.
The court did side with the Zen Center on one separate point. Ehrenkranz had argued that two individual managers found personally liable in the case – former Center president Linda Galijan and former City Center director Mike Smith – should have each posted their own separate appeal bonds. The court disagreed, finding that because the Zen Center had already posted a bond covering the full award amount, the requirement was met.
The case now goes back to the trial court. The Zen Center still has the opportunity to argue, with actual evidence, that Ehrenkranz's specific claims touch on religious concerns. But the appeals court made clear that simply labeling someone a minister is not enough to make a wage lawsuit disappear.
For HR professionals at religious schools, churches, temples, and faith-based nonprofits, the takeaway is practical: compensation practices need to hold up under the same scrutiny applied to any other employer. The First Amendment offers real protections, but they have limits – and those limits, a California court just confirmed, stop well short of unpaid wages.
