The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Hat Trick, Inc., a Chick-fil-A franchisee, and alleged religious discrimination based on the failure to provide a reasonable accommodation.

The employee held a fleet supervisor position from September 2023 to February 2024. During her job interview, the employee allegedly informed Hat Trick, Inc. that she observed the Sabbath from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday per her sincerely-held religious belief as a member of the United Church of God.

The employee was accommodated by not being scheduled to work on Saturdays for approximately five months until February 2024, when
she was told Saturday work would be required. The employee alleges she submitted an additional written request for religious accommodation and had several meetings with management.

Management allegedly told the employee that to avoid being scheduled on Saturdays, she would have to accept a non-managerial job as a delivery driver, which included lower pay, reduced hours, and reduced benefits. The employee allegedly proposed several accommodation alternatives that would have allowed her to keep her managerial role. These proposals were denied by management.

Hat Trick Inc. alleged the employee left a meeting with management on February 23 and failed to show up for her shift on February 26, after which Hat Trick Inc. terminated her for "job abandonment."

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/chick-fil-a-franchisee-denies-employee-fired-observing-saturday-sabbath-12198039; https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-sues-hatch-trick-inc-religious-discrimination

Commentary

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision in Groff v. DeJoy, changed the previous 1977 "de minimus" framework for determining reasonable accommodations for religious practices under Title VII. Under the old standard, an employer could deny a request for a religious accommodation unless to grant it would require the employer to "bear no more than a de minimis cost".

Now, pursuant to Groff, employers have a new, and much higher, standard to meet when denying accommodations. Employers must grant religious accommodation requests unless to do so would result in "substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of [an employer's] particular business."

Because the Supreme Court provided no clear test, the standard is to be applied case-by-case. In the above case, the fact that the employee had not worked on her Sabbath for five months indicates the employer will have difficulty proving that to continue her schedule would result in "substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of [an employer's] particular business."

To help avoid religious discrimination risk under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers must engage in an interactive process with employees who request reasonable accommodations, and apply the Groff standard. This interactive process includes discussing the requested accommodation, exploring alternate accommodations, and documenting the reason certain accommodations were either granted or denied.

Although in the lawsuit above, the employer is alleged to have offered an alternative to the employee's accommodation request in the form of a job reassignment, that particular job reassignment appears discriminatory and retaliatory because it was a demotion from a managerial position, less pay, an hours reduction, and benefits reduction.

The employer may try to defend its termination by pointing to the employee's walkout and failure to return to work. However, what is characterized as "job abandonment" by the employer may be characterized by the former employee as a "constructive discharge".

The final takeaway is that employers will have difficulty changing, without risk, religious accommodations already approved, especially under the higher, Groff standard. It is always a best practice to work with human resource professionals and to seek legal counsel.