Suits In The WorkPlace

Reasonable Accommodation and Religious Beliefs

    I've had occasion in this blog to comment on religious discrimination cases several times.  A new decision by the 4th Circuit does a very nice job of laying out the parameters to be considered by an employer in determining whether to grant a request to deviate from its work procedures to accommodate someone's religious beliefs.

    Plaintiff belongs to the Living Church of God.  Among other things, his religious beliefs prohibit him from working from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday and on several other religious holidays.  The holidays typically total 20 days a year, including 14 that do not already coincide with part of the weekly Sabbath.  The employee initially did not encounter a problem because he worked only during day shifts on weekdays and was able to use his company vacation days for non-Sabbath observances. 

    Unfortunately, this situation did not remain static.  The company restructured its operations, forcing the plaintiff to change shifts as a result of being bumped by employees with more seniority in the plant.  It became immediately apparent that the plaintiff could not continue to attend all of his religious obligations while meeting his work schedule.  The company, which was operating under a collective bargaining agreement, had a fairly flexible time off policy, including 15 vacation days, 3 floating holidays, the ability to swap shifts 8 times per year with another employee, and the ability to take 60 hours of unpaid leave for any reason.  The company also allowed an employee to use up to 3 vacation days in 1/2-day increments, if necessary.  However, an employee exceeding 60 hours of unpaid leave is terminated.

    Notwithstanding these options, plaintiff could not maintain his religious observance schedule.  He requested permission to extend his unpaid leave of absence, something the company had allowed on a one-time or non-recurring event basis.  But because his request was for something that was going to recur, the company denied his request.  Plaintiff was ultimately terminated when he failed to show up for work on one of his religious holidays.

    The district court granted summary judgment and the case went up before the 4^th Circuit.  The court noted that an employer can prevail on a case of religious accommodation discrimination if it can show either that it provided the employee with a reasonable accommodation for the religious observance or that providing an accommodation would have caused an undue hardship to the employer.  Undue hardship is defined as something that results in more than a de minimus cost.  The plaintiff contended that an employer provides a reasonable accommodation only when it completely eliminates the conflict between the religious practice and the work requirement.  The 4th Circuit dealt with this easily, noting that the requirement was for a reasonable accommodation; an employer was not required to offer an alternative work arrangement that totally eliminated any potential conflict.  The court stated that the employer's seniority-based bidding system for work shifts is a significant accommodation to the needs of its employees, and that the additional flexibility in the work schedule further bolstered the employer's claim that it had attempted a reasonable accommodation.  The court also approved the employer's granting the employee the opportunity to take additional 1/2 days of time off above the CBA entitlement, as well. 

    The important point of the court's opinion is this -- an employer's existing policies can be sufficiently flexible to comprise a reasonable accommodation for religious claims.  In this case, the court cited the employer's collectively bargained attendance programs, without modification, as sufficient evidence of reasonable accommodation efforts.  A second important holding by the court:  an employer may consider the feelings and morale of its workforce in assessing whether additional modifications of its policies will be an undue hardship.  The court specifically noted that evenhandedness and fairness are of paramount importance to the functioning of any workplace.  In a particularly telling statement, the court said, "Coworkers have rights, too." 

    We are seeing an increasing number of workplace accommodation claims for religious practices.  This decision provides some well thought out guidance on the limits of what an employer has to do to satisfy its obligations under the law in dealing with these claims.