Supreme Court makes it easier to win religious accommodation cases

The Supreme Court has made it easier for plaintiffs to win their religious accommodation cases when their employers reject an accommodation on the basis that it would pose an "undue burden" on the company. This ruling substantially changes the legal landscape for these cases.

The case is Groff v. DeJoy, issued on June 29. The plaintiff worked for the Post Office and wanted to take off on Sunday for religious observance. He received progressive discipline for not working on Sundays, and he sued the Post Office. Groff lost the case because allowing him to not work on Sunday imposed upon his coworkers, disrupted the workplace and workflow, and diminished employee morale. 

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employee can ask management to accommodate her religious practices by, for example, changing the schedule or implementing some other change in the workplace so long as that accommodation does not eliminate an essential job function. In 1977, the Supreme Court said in TWA v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977), that a proposed accommodation is not an undue hardship if the employer would have to bear "more than a de minimus cost." That language is not the most precise legal standard, but that's been the law for nearly 50 years, and lower courts have latched upon that standard in ruling against plaintiffs for decades, even when they seek minor accommodations. The graveyard is filled with cases that lost on the de minimus language under Hardison. This case provides clarity.

Without expressly overruling Hardison, the Court unanimously rules that Hardison cannot be reduced to that imprecise phrase. "Hardship" means something more severe than a mere burden. It means something "hard to bear." And the statute requires an undue hardship, not a mere hardship. So the de minimus test is not faithful to Title VII's protections against religious discrimination. 

The Court says that the real test is whether the employee's proposed religious accommodation would impose "substantial additional costs" on the employer. This test must be applied in the context of whatever business or governmental office is defending the case. We should also consider the practical impact that the religious accommodation would have on the business. The cost for one business may be substantial while the cost may be minor for another business. The Court adds that the EEOC's guidance on these issues, including that no undue hardship is imposed by temporary costs, voluntary shift-swapping, or administrative costs, is probably still useful.

Justice Sotomayor's concurring opinion agrees that the Hardison test needed to be re-examined, and that in considering whether a proposed religious accommodation might pose and undue hardship on the conduct of an employer's business, we can consider the impact the accommodation would have on the business's employees. 

We knew the Supreme Court was going to re-evaluate the Hardison test. Some of the justices over the years have said the Court should take another look at Hardison because it was not sufficiently favorable to the religious employees. The conservative majority has been quite receptive to religious discrimination claims in recent years. The liberal justices, meanwhile, recognize that this new standard is sufficiently pro-plaintiff to join in Justice Alito's analysis for the Court as a whole. Groff's case returns to the lower courts to apply this revised legal standard. 

The Court, as usual, relies on dictionary definitions to determine what "hardship" means, and I must say the Court must have the best dictionary collection in America, as it frequently resorts to dictionary definitions to decipher statutes that do not always provide the guidance that everyone needs to apply it to real-life factual disputes.