In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court in the case of Groff v. DeJoy[1] jettisoned the long-held de minimis cost standard for religious accommodation claims under Title VII. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals, like most circuits,[2] had construed the Supreme Court’s 1977 decision in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison[3] to mean that “requiring an employer to bear more than a de minimis cost to provide a religious accommodation is an undue burden.”[4] Rather than completely overruling Hardison, the court clarified the undue hardship standard to mean that “an employer must show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.”[5]

Although the Supreme Court’s decision did not reach the merits of the case, the essential facts are as follows. Gerald Groff was a postal carrier whose religious beliefs prohibited him from working on Sundays. USPS offered to facilitate shift swaps for Groff on each Sunday that he was scheduled to work, but that offer did not eliminate Groff’s religious conflict because USPS could not find co-workers to cover all of Groff’s Sunday shifts. When Groff did not work on those Sundays, he was disciplined. Groff received eight performance deficiency interviews and three official disciplinary actions for not working on Sundays. Following the last disciplinary action – a 14-day suspension – Groff resigned. USPS argued that it could not fully accommodate Groff’s religious beliefs because doing so would impose an undue hardship.  Specifically, USPS cited the increased workload on coworkers and low employee morale as evidence of undue hardship.

As discussed in a previous article by Heather Moore Collins, the de minimis cost standard has been under severe scrutiny for years.[6] Therefore, it is no surprise that the Supreme Court cast aside the lenient standard for a more stringent one. It did so based on two grounds. First, it noted that the majority opinion in Hardison included language that suggested that an accommodation is not required when it entails substantial costs or expenditures.[7] Second, applying the plain meaning of the statutory term “undue hardship,” the court noted that the costs of granting an accommodation “would have to rise to the level of hardship, and adding the modifier ‘undue’ means that the requisite burden, privation, or adversity must rise to an ‘excessive’ or ‘unjustifiable’ level.”[8] Clearly, an undue hardship is far more than a burden that is merely more than de minimis.

While the court articulated a more stringent standard for undue hardship, it refused to adopt the undue hardship definition[9] set forth in the Americans with Disabilities Act.[10] It likewise refused to adopt the EEOC’s guidelines construing Hardison,[11] although it did note that “a good deal of the EEOC’s guidance in this area is sensible.”[12] The only practical guidance that the court gave for evaluating undue hardship under the new standard “is that courts must apply the test in a manner that takes into account all relevant factors in the case at hand, including the particular accommodations at issue and their practical impact in light of the nature, size and operating cost of [the] employer.”[13]

Additionally, the court addressed whether an employer may demonstrate undue hardship merely by showing a burden upon co-workers rather than the business itself.  According to the court, “an accommodation’s effect on co-workers may have ramifications for the conduct of the employer’s business, but a court cannot stop its analysis without examining whether that further logical step is shown in a particular case.”[14] Evidence merely showing a co-worker’s dislike of religious practices or religious expression in the workplace, or evidence of a coworker’s dislike of accommodations in general are insufficient.[15] In other words, evidence of co-worker impact may be relevant only if such impact is shown to negatively affect the employer’s business operations.

Finally, the court noted that an employer’s duty under Title VII must go further than simply assessing the reasonableness of a particular religious accommodation proposed by the employee. If the accommodation proposed by the employee constitutes an undue hardship, the employer must consider alternatives to fulfill its duty to reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious belief or practice.[16]

The Groff decision has far-sweeping ramifications for religious accommodation claims.  No longer will employers have a relatively light burden in proving an affirmative defense to such claims. But what are the practical contours of the “clarified standard” – a showing of substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business? Will courts begin to analyze these claims in a light similar to the ADA’s undue hardship framework even though the Supreme Court expressly refused to adopt the ADA framework? Time will tell. For now, the Supreme Court has left “the context-specific application of [its] clarified standard to the lower courts.”[17] For Gerald Groff, that means his case is being remanded to the Third Circuit to review the record afresh and to decide whether any further factual development is needed.

Doug Hamill currently serves as chair of the Tennessee Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Section.  He is a member of Mikel & Hamill PLLC, a Chattanooga based law firm whose primary focus is plaintiff-side employment discrimination law.  Hamill received his law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 2003.  He may be reached at 423-541-5400 or dhamill@mhemploymentlaw.com.