Supreme Court backs Sabbath Sunday accommodations for workers

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court gave the green light Thursday to a postal worker fighting for additional religious accommodations in the workplace.

While the U.S. Postal Service had argued that accommodating the needs of its worker, Gerald Groff, for Sundays off, would burden his co-workers, the high court was unanimous that employers cannot deny a religious accommodation without showing how the burden of granting such accommodation would result in substantial increased costs for its business.

“This is an important victory for Americans of all faiths, who may now follow their religious consciences in the workplace,” Groff’s attorney Aaron Streett said. 

“It is especially gratifying that the court was unanimous in interpreting the Civil Rights Act according to its plain language, holding that employers must accommodate religious practices absent an ‘undue hardship’ on the ‘conduct of the business.’”

Groff needed Sundays off as a devout Sabbatarian Christian, but his job as a rural carrier associate in Pennsylvania required him to work a flexible schedule that included Sundays and holidays. 

USPS attempted to accommodate Groff’s request but was ultimately unable to do so without burdening other employees. Other carriers were forced to work extra shifts, and one forced to cover Groff’s shifts even filed a grievance with the union. 

Groff would miss over two dozen shifts before USPS took disciplinary action against him. After seven years on the job, he resigned and sued the agency. 

The lower courts sided with USPS, finding that accommodating Groff’s Sunday Sabbath requests placed an undue hardship on his employer. After taking up Groff's appeal, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in April.

Employees with religious beliefs like Groff are entitled to discrimination-free workplaces under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s interpretation of Title VII, employers have to make accommodations for employees’ religious beliefs when they can do so without undue hardship.

"Faced with an accommodation request like Groff’s, an employer must do more that conclude that forcing other employees to work overtime would constitute an undue hardship. Consideration of other options would also be necessary," Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court Thursday.

Critics of the ruling are calling it an example of favoritism for people with religious ideologies and degradation of the line that separates church and state.

“Religious employees want to take Sundays off because it's their sabbath," said Edward Tabash, who chairs the board of directors for the Center of Inquiry. "If the only way to accommodate them is to compel nonreligious employees to work on Sundays, even if this means that the latter will have to give up weekend time with family and friends, there is an Establishment Clause violation because the government is now requiring a religious motive to be given more consideration than a nonreligious one."

A nonprofit organization that works to advance science, critical thinking, secularism and humanist values in public policy, the Center of Inquiry filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing that nonreligious workers should be treated equally and allowed the same rights in the workplace.

At the intermediate appeals level, the Third Circuit majority had noted the Sunday exemption for Groff had “imposed on his coworkers, disrupted the workplace and workflow, and diminished employee morale." U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman wrote in dissent, however, that such reasons were not enough to satisfy the hardship standard.

Sunday work became essential for mail carriers after the Postal Service inked a deal with Amazon. Groff initially transitioned to another USPS outpost to avoid these shifts, but even that location began Sunday deliveries in 2017.

Forty-seven years ago, it was an airline employee who first tested the bounds employers’ responsibility under Title VII at the Supreme Court. In Trans World Airlines Inc. v. Hardison, the employee wanted Sabbath accommodations that would have forced the airline union to compel other employees to cover his shifts on Saturday. The court ruled in favor of the union and created a standard for evaluating these claims. Under Hardison, employers should not be forced to “bear more than a de minimis cost” in accommodating religious beliefs.

Groff argued this test violated founding era promises and should be corrected.

“This court should reject the government’s watered-down test for undue hardship,” Groff's lawyer, Aaron Streett with Baker Botts, said during oral arguments. “It will provide inadequate protection for religious liberty in the workplace.”

The government disagreed with Groff over the need to overrule Hardison but asked the justices to clarify the ruling’s interpretation.

“This Court demands an exceptionally compelling reason to overrule a statutory precedent because Congress is free to correct any error it perceives in this Court’s statutory decisions,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the government’s brief. “That principle applies with full force here: In the nearly half-century since Hardison was decided, Congress has often amended Title VII, but it has repeatedly declined proposals to overturn Hardison.”

Alito and his colleagues explained Thursday that the statutory term “hardship” refers to something more severe than a “mere burden.” In adding the modifier “undue,” as Title VII does, the statute requires that the burden rise to an “excessive” or “unjustifiable” level, such as substantial expenditures as noted in Hardison.

Title VII requires an assessment of how an accommodation will effect “the conduct of the employer’s business,” according to the ruling, which notes that impacts on co-workers are relevant only to the extent those impacts go on to affect the conduct of the business.

A co-worker’s mere dislike of an accommodation or “religious practice and expression in the workplace” is also not enough to support an undue hardship defense, Alito wrote.

The U.S. Solicitor General’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Having clarified the Title VII undue-hardship standard, the high court remanded the case back to the lower courts to determine the context-specific application of the standard.

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