On June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Groff v. DeJoy. The Court’s ruling “clarified” the “undue hardship” standard that an employer must establish to deny a religious accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”). Before this decision, the undue hardship standard provided that an employer could deny a religious accommodation if it imposed more than a de minimis cost or effort on the employer. The Court rejected in Groff the de minimis undue hardship standard taken from the Court’s 1977 decision in Trans World America v. Hardison. Rather, undue hardship is now shown when the burden of providing a religious accommodation is substantial in the overall context of the employer’s business.
Background
Groff is a former employee of the United States Postal Service (“USPS”) and a Christian who was unwilling to work on Sundays because of his religious practices. Because of Groff’s unwillingness to work on Sundays, USPS made special arrangements for other employees to cover Groff’s Sunday assignments. However, this coverage was inconsistent; and as a result, Groff’s employer progressively disciplined him for failing to work on Sundays. Groff resigned and then sued his former employer under Title VII for failing to accommodate his religious practices.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Groff’s suit, finding that Groff’s employer established the de minimis undue hardship standard.
The Court’s Analysis
In a unanimous opinion, Justice Alito vacated the Third Circuit’s decision, finding that courts mistakenly clung to Hardison’s reference to de minimis in evaluating what an employer must show to defend its denial of a religious accommodation. The Court rejected Groff’s argument that undue hardship requires “significant difficulty or expense,” a standard utilized under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Rather, the Court understood Hardison to mean that an employer demonstrates undue hardship under Title VII when there is a substantial burden in the overall context of an employer’s business.
Despite its clarification of Title VII’s undue hardship standard, the Court advised that “[a] good deal of the EEOC’s guidance in this area is sensible and will, in all likelihood, be unaffected by our clarifying decision.”
According to the Court, Title VII also requires that an employer, evaluating whether there is an undue hardship, do more than assess a potential accommodation’s reasonableness. The Court stated that the impact that an accommodation has on coworkers is only relevant in the undue hardship analysis to the extent it affects the conduct of the business. Consideration of other options by the employer is necessary for an employer to show undue hardship. The Court further advised “a hardship that is attributable to employee animosity to a particular religion, to religion in general, or to the very notion of accommodating religious practice, cannot be considered ‘undue.’ Bias or hostility to a religious practice or accommodation cannot supply a defense.”
The Court explained that this new “clarified” undue hardship standard is fact-specific, requiring courts to “take 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 an employer.” The Court, thereby, remanded the case to the lower court to apply its undue hardship standard.
Practical Takeaways
As the Supreme Court laid out in Groff, the undue hardship standard under Title VII requires that an employer prove that providing a religious accommodation is substantial in the overall context of its business. With that in mind, employers should conduct a context-specific assessment before denying an employee’s religious accommodation request.
If you have any questions on issues discussed in or related to this post, please contact:
- Kathryn Jones at (248) 457-7846 or kejones@hallrender.com; or
- Your primary Hall Render contact.
Special thanks to Michael Pflueger, Summer Associate, for his assistance in preparing this article.
Hall Render blog posts and articles are intended for informational purposes only. For ethical reasons, Hall Render attorneys cannot—outside of an attorney-client relationship—answer specific questions that would be legal advice.
