EEOC Religious Accommodation Lawsuit Holds Lessons for Employers

A federal judge in Colorado recently imposed sanctions on an employer that failed to preserve evidence in a religious accommodation lawsuit. The case serves as a reminder for employers to work with their attorneys and HR and IT departments to safeguard relevant information when such claims arise.

In the nearly decade-long litigation, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) claimed that JBS USA LLC—a meat processor with a facility in Greeley, Colo.—failed to reasonably accommodate Muslim workers' prayer breaks.

JBS claimed that accommodating prayer breaks would cause an undue hardship for the company because of the resulting downtime in production. In response, the EEOC requested certain reports that supervisors used to document downtime and production disruptions—but the company failed to produce them.

[SHRM members-only toolkit: Accommodating Religion, Belief and Spirituality in the Workplace]

The downtime records were apparently "warehoused," but for many years during the litigation, JBS claimed that the records had been destroyed, explained Sarah Belger, a management attorney with Odin, Feldman & Pittleman in Reston, Va. The company finally produced some reports after searching its Colorado warehouse for "a day" and indicated that more downtime reports were stored in boxes at the warehouse but could not be located.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado imposed sanctions on JBS, finding that the company lost or destroyed documents that were essential to the case.

The court "basically gutted the employer's undue hardship defense by ruling that it is barred from presenting evidence that unscheduled prayer breaks led to 'twelve minutes per day' of production line slowdowns or stoppages," Belger said.

"A lesson from this case is that employers must anticipate document retention issues and comply with discovery requests" from opposing counsel, said Tom Spiggle, an attorney with the Spiggle Law Firm in Arlington, Va., who represents employees.

Litigation Holds

The court found that JBS knew within a year after the downtime records were created that they were relevant to the EEOC investigation and still allowed those records to be warehoused in a way so that they could not be easily found.

Since the company has lost its "undue hardship" defense, it will be extremely difficult for the company to defend against the EEOC's reasonable accommodation claim, Belger said.

She suggested that as soon as an employer receives an EEOC charge or a demand letter, it should institute a broad litigation hold to preserve potential evidence.  

The hold should be over-inclusive, she added, noting that one person should be designated as the "keeper" of the litigation hold and should issue periodic updates to employees and monitor compliance. 

"Employees who are likely to be witnesses should be interviewed immediately to determine what kind of documents they have, where they keep such information and in what format," she said, adding that the litigation hold should be coordinated through the HR and IT departments with assistance from counsel.

"When these issues arise, it is almost always advisable for management to get the advice of an employment lawyer about a legal course of action," Spiggle said. "Failure to do so can land you in court, as happened here."

Religious Accommodations

This case also illustrates why it's so important for employers to document requests for religious accommodation and the employer's related decisions, Belger said.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, covered employers have a duty to reasonably accommodate religious practices or observances unless doing so would result in an undue hardship for the business.

A job applicant or employee must make the employer aware of the need for an accommodation and alert the employer that the accommodation is being requested due to a conflict between a work requirement and a religious belief or observance, Belger said.

Employers should engage in an interactive process to see if a reasonable accommodation can be provided. Belger noted that examples of religious accommodations include:

• Providing prayer breaks.
  
• Authorizing schedule or shift changes.
  
• Providing exceptions to the dress code.
  
• Changing job assignments.
  
• Setting up prayer rooms for employees to use at work.
  

"Factors relevant to undue hardship may include the type of workplace, the nature of the employee's duties, the identifiable cost of the accommodation in relation to the size and operating costs of the employer, and the number of employees who will in fact need a particular accommodation," she said.

She added that employers should have written procedures for managers to follow when they receive a request for a religious accommodation and that requests and related decisions should be documented. "Ask the employee to put the request in writing, and follow up with a request for details if needed."

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