Handle With Care: Religious Accommodation Requests  

(Published March 1, 2009)

Reprinted from MANAGER'S LEGAL BULLETIN, a widely read employment law newsletter that communicates legal guidelines to managers through scenarios based on real-life cases. 

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Before you reject an employee's religious accommodation request, you'd better be sure that the accommodation would create an undue hardship. Failing to grant a reasonable request is a costly violation of the employee's rights.

Reasonable Request

 

Jonas Pruitt and Sebastian Barr worked as customer service technicians for a telephone service provider. Each year, they took leave to attend an annual Jehovah's Witness convention.  In January, Pruitt and Barr each submitted a written request to their supervisor, Morrie Jordan, for one day of leave in July so they could attend the convention. Company policy prohibited two employees in the same department from taking off work the same day, but Jordan had often disregarded this policy in the past. Just to be on the safe side, they requested the leave six months in advance of the convention, so Jordan would have plenty of time to find workers to fill in for them or find another way to accommodate them. 

Jordan informed them the day before the convention that their leave requests had been denied. He was concerned that, with both men out, he'd have to stop scheduling maintenance and repairs a few hours earlier than normal, or he'd have to pay overtime to get the other employees working that day to cover the missing men's shift. Jordan felt the men had an obligation to work, whereas attendance at the conference was not required by their religion, per se. (Members were expected to attend whenever possible with their congregation.)

When Pruitt and Barr objected, Jordan issued a work directive, ordering them in no uncertain terms to report to work the next day.  The employees attended the convention anyway, and Jordan fired them for misconduct, job abandonment, insubordination, and failure to follow a work directive.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a lawsuit on the employees' behalf.  A federal jury found the employer guilty of violating Title VII by failing to accommodate the employees and by terminating them because of their religious practice; the company was required to pay $756,000 in damages.

 

Unreasonable Objections

 

Title VII requires an employer to reasonably accommodate an employee whose sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance conflicts with a work requirement, unless doing so would pose an undue hardship.

Where did Jordan go wrong?  Let the EEOC count the ways.

• He let the fact that attendance at the conference wasn't a religious requirement overshadow the fact that the employees held a sincere religious belief compelling their attendance at the conference.  He had no reason to believe that the belief was not sincerely held by either Pruitt or Barr.  According to the EEOC, Title VII protects all aspects of religious observance and practice, whether it's a religion-wide practice or a personal choice, as long as the belief is religious in nature and sincerely held.  If you have an objective basis for questioning either the religious nature or the sincerity of an employee's belief, then seek additional supporting information.
  
  
• The employees' absence did not create an undue hardship, considering that Jordan had previously allowed more than one person to take off during the same shift, and there was no evidence that customer service needs went unmet on the day Pruitt and Barr were absent.  The fact that the company had to pay other employees overtime was seen as a de minimis hardship by the court because the amount was only about $440, and the company routinely paid employees overtime. 
  
  
• Jordan did not make a good-faith effort to accommodate the request.  Any hardships the company experienced were the result of Jordan's failure to address the accommodation request in a timely manner.  He had six months to find workers to swap shifts with Pruitt and Barr, or to allow the employees to find their own substitutes. The EEOC states that making an exception to the company's regular scheduling policies, procedures, or practices is one way to grant a religious accommodation request.  Jordan had made exceptions before, so doing so again shouldn't have been considered a major problem.