Supreme Court Ruling Sets Precedent for Religion at Work
Posted Jul 03, 2023
Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian postal worker, specifically took a job at the U.S. Postal Service because he wouldn't have to work on Sundays. Enter Amazon, which signed a contract with the USPS to deliver on Sundays. While this was a financial benefit for the USPS, it meant that Groff's bosses wanted him to work on Sunday.
He sued, saying his religion prohibited it.
On June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a very unusual unanimous decision saying that the standard for religious accommodations was too narrow and needed to be expanded. While the statute requires companies to provide an accommodation as long as it wasn't an "undue burden," what that means was in question.
Previously, courts interpreted "undue burden" as meaning nothing more than a "de minimus" impact. In other words, something very small. In Groff's case, the USPS said they tried to find a solution with a small impact but couldn't. The Associated Press described it as follows:
Groff told his supervisor he'd work extra shifts and holidays to avoid Sundays. The supervisor tried to find other carriers for Groff's Sunday shifts, even though finding substitutes was time consuming and not always possible. Groff's absences, meanwhile, created a tense environment, led to resentment toward management and contributed to morale problems, officials said. It also meant other carriers had to work more Sundays or sometimes deliver more Sunday mail than they otherwise would. One carrier transferred and another resigned in part because of the situation, Groff's supervisor said.
To accommodate Groff's sincere belief (which was ever in question--the law requires that someone hold a sincere belief) would require more than a de minimus work on the part of the USPS.
The Court agreed with Groff and held that the law requires an employer to accommodate an employee's sincerely held religious belief as long as it doesn't "result in substantially increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business."
How this ruling applies to your business
Employment attorney Eric Meyer explained that this ruling allows businesses to consider "all relevant factors," which means that the results can vary from business to business. Meyer wrote:
In other words, a single-location operation with 15 employees may face substantial increased costs accommodating the same employee whom a Fortune 500 company could enable to practice their religion and perform their job too.
Much as you do to adhere to the Americans with Disabilities Act, you must consider each situation independently. How does this accommodation affect your specific business? You can't go off a cookie-cutter template from different businesses.
Meyer continues:
But we know now that employers must do more than simply assess the reasonableness of a particular possible accommodation. For example, an employer must do more than conclude that forcing other employees to work overtime would constitute an undue hardship. It must also consider other options.
This is more than just Sundays off
While you may think of religious accommodations along the lines of Sundays off or wearing a headscarf at work, it's actually a lot more.
Employment attorney Jon Hyman explains:
It's still a case-by-case factual determination, but it's one that now has some teeth behind it for the employee seeking a religious accommodation.
We shouldn't downplay the significance of this decision, especially on the heels of the pandemic's workplace vaccine mandates that forced many employers to confront the issue of religious accommodations for the very first time.
You need to take every religious accommodation request seriously and actively seek a solution--like the interactive process you go through now for disability cases.
The requirement will be on you to show that an accommodation would require a substantial burden on your business. That said, this isn't something that should cause you to panic. Most accommodations will still have a minimal impact on your business.