{"id":5447,"date":"2023-07-07T09:44:56","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T13:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?p=5447"},"modified":"2023-07-07T15:31:32","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T19:31:32","slug":"scotus-imposes-more-stringent-standard-for-employers-managing-requests-for-religious-workplace-accommodation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/scotus-imposes-more-stringent-standard-for-employers-managing-requests-for-religious-workplace-accommodation.html","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS Imposes More Stringent Standard For Employers Managing Requests for Religious Workplace Accommodations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On June 29, 2023, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court issued its\u00a0decision in\u00a0<em>Groff v. DeJoy<\/em>, clarifying employers\u2019 obligations to accommodate employees\u2019 religious practices under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.\u00a0 The Court reinterpreted the meaning of \u201cundue hardship\u201d and held that Title VII requires an employer who denies an employee\u2019s request for a religious accommodation to show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in \u201csubstantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.\u201d\u00a0 In doing so, the Court rejected a commonly applied, employer-friendly interpretation that an undue hardship exists if an employer can show that the accommodation would result in \u201cmore than a <em>de minimis<\/em>\u00a0cost.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The More Lenient \u201cUndue Hardship\u201d Standard Applied by the Lower Courts: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Under Title VII, employers are required to accommodate an employee\u2019s religious practices unless doing so would impose an \u201cundue hardship on the conduct of the employer\u2019s business.\u201d\u00a0 In <em>Groff<\/em>, a postal carrier who was unwilling to work on Sundays because of his religious practices sued his employer (the United States Postal Service), alleging that it could have accommodated his Sunday Sabbath without undue hardship.\u00a0 Initially, Groff\u2019s position did not include Sunday work.\u00a0 This later changed, however, causing Gross to transfer to a small postal station that did not make Sunday deliveries.\u00a0 Once this station began making Sunday deliveries, however, Groff\u2019s Sunday deliveries were redistributed to other workers.\u00a0 He was disciplined for failing to work on Sundays, and he eventually resigned.\u00a0 The trial court granted the employer summary judgment, which the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, finding that exempting Gross from Sunday work resulted in more than a <em>de minimis<\/em>\u00a0cost, as the exemption had \u201cimposed on his coworkers, disrupted the workplace and workflow, and diminished employee morale.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/scotus-imposes-more-stringent-standard-for-employers-managing-requests-for-religious-workplace-accommodation.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading SCOTUS Imposes More Stringent Standard For Employers Managing Requests for Religious Workplace Accommodations\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On June 29, 2023, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court issued its\u00a0decision in\u00a0Groff v. DeJoy, clarifying employers\u2019 obligations to accommodate employees\u2019 religious practices under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.\u00a0 The Court reinterpreted the meaning of \u201cundue hardship\u201d and held that Title VII requires an employer who denies an employee\u2019s request for a religious accommodation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,442,247],"tags":[],"coauthors":[441],"class_list":["post-5447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights","category-weiner","category-labor-employment-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SCOTUS Imposes More Stringent Standard For Employers Managing Requests for Religious Workplace Accommodations &#8212; July 7, 2023 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On June 29, 2023, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court issued its\u00a0decision in\u00a0Groff v. DeJoy, clarifying employers\u2019 obligations to accommodate employees\u2019\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/scotus-imposes-more-stringent-standard-for-employers-managing-requests-for-religious-workplace-accommodation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SCOTUS Imposes More Stringent Standard For Employers Managing Requests for Religious Workplace Accommodations &#8212; July 7, 2023 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. 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DeJoy, clarifying employers\u2019 obligations to accommodate employees\u2019","og_url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/scotus-imposes-more-stringent-standard-for-employers-managing-requests-for-religious-workplace-accommodation.html","og_site_name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","article_published_time":"2023-07-07T13:44:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-07-07T19:31:32+00:00","author":"Joshua L. Weiner","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Joshua L. 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