Refusal to Provide Religious Accommodation Requires Proof of Undue Hardship

Evidence was inconclusive on whether an employer's reason for refusing to hire a plaintiff based on concerns his religious obligations would interfere with his ability to perform the job duties was a pretext for discrimination, a federal district court ruled. The employer's motion for summary judgment was denied.

The plaintiff was a practicing Seventh-Day Adventist whose religious beliefs prohibit working on the Sabbath, from Fridays at sundown until sundown Saturdays. The employer declined to hire him, saying that his religious obligation would interfere with his ability to perform his duties because the employer could not guarantee a Sabbath-free schedule. The plaintiff claimed that the employer's reason was a pretext to avoid providing a religious accommodation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The plaintiff had applied to work with the employer, a regional airline, as a pilot in 2017. The employer used a shift-bidding system to assign pilots to flights. Pilots used the system to enter their preferred schedules that the software accommodates based on seniority. Pilots used a separate system to trade, swap or drop assigned shifts, and the employer worked with pilots to facilitate such changes whenever possible.

The plaintiff had previously been hired in 2016 as a pilot. At that time, the employer informed him that it was unable to honor his specific request for work scheduling, but as a reasonable accommodation he could use the schedule-bidding system and post-bidding tool to meet his religious obligations. However, the plaintiff resigned when his initial training was scheduled during the Sabbath and there were no alternative dates or times that also did not violate the Sabbath.

During the 2017 interview process, the plaintiff stated that he understood the employer could not guarantee a Sabbath-free schedule and that he intended to use the provided tools to avoid shifts that conflicted with his beliefs. He would not commit to working if he were unable to avoid a shift on the Sabbath.

The employer therefore declined to hire the plaintiff, who filed a claim alleging failure to hire and failure to accommodate. The employer then filed a motion for summary judgement.

The employer argued that it provided an accommodation for the plaintiff's religious practice, but he declined it by not committing to work on the Sabbath if the accommodation did not work to allow him to avoid it. The employer also argued that it could not offer the plaintiff's preferred accommodation without undue hardship to its scheduling system.

The plaintiff countered that the employer had previously hired two other Seventh-Day Adventist pilots who had successfully worked for years without having to work on the Sabbath using the accommodation that the plaintiff had agreed to. He further noted that the employer had a reserve pilot system in place to cover for unexpected pilot absences due to nonreligious reasons such as illness, inclement weather or other unforeseen circumstances, and used it successfully without hardship. The plaintiff also argued that the accommodation had not been extended because the employer had not allowed him the opportunity to try it.

The court found that the determination of whether the employer's reason for failing to hire or accommodate the plaintiff was pretextual hinged on three things:

• The likelihood that the plaintiff would have been assigned to a Sabbath shift.
• The frequency with which the plaintiff would have been assigned to a Sabbath shift.
• The feasibility of replacing the plaintiff with a reserve pilot for any missed shifts.

If the plaintiff could avoid Sabbath assignments, or if accommodating his absence from infrequent Sabbath assignments imposed no undue hardship on the employer, the case for pretext would be strengthened, the court said. If the plaintiff would likely face frequent Sabbath assignments and his absences would disrupt the employer's reserve system, that would support the employer's decision. These issues, the court ruled, were for a jury to decide.

Cassell v. SkyWest Inc., D. Utah, No. 2:19-cv-00149 (Feb. 8, 2022).

Robert S. Teachout, SHRM-SCP, is a legal editor for Brightmine™ HR & Compliance Centre, a service helping HR build successful and purposeful workplaces, in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore area.