Here's to future court victories: SCotUS refuses religious claim against Walgreens

[UTUSN]

**********QUOTE********

https://www.jurist.org/news/2020/02/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-religious-bias-claim-against-walgreens/
.... The district court ruled that Walgreens did not violate the law by firing Patterson. It explained that Title VII of the Civil rights Act of 1964 only requires that employers “reasonably accommodate” workers’ religious beliefs so long as such accommodation does not cause the company “undue hardship” and concluded that Patterson’s request to never work on Saturdays caused undue hardship to Walgreens, thus making Walgreens’ decision to fire Patterson proper. ....

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-supreme-court-turns-away-144704437.html

U.S. Supreme Court turns away religious bias claim against Walgreens

WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to Walgreens, turning away an appeal by a fired former Florida employee of the pharmacy chain who asked not to work on Saturdays for religious reasons as a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The justices declined to review a lower court ruling in Darrell Patterson's religious discrimination lawsuit that concluded that his demand to never work on Saturday, observed as the Sabbath by Seventh-day Adventists, placed an undue hardship on Walgreens.

Patterson, who had trained customer service representatives at a Walgreens call center in Orlando, was fired in 2011 after failing to show up for work on a Saturday for an urgent training session.

The case tested the allowances companies must make for employees for religious reasons to comply with a federal anti-discrimination law called Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

Under Title VII, employers must "reasonably accommodate" workers' religious practices unless that would cause the company "undue hardship."

************UNQUOTE*******

[Ilsa]

1. If he doesn't want to work on Sundays, he can

go to Hobby Lobby or Chik-fil-A. Of course, they'll have to start pharmacies.

[UTUSN]

2. My Hobby Lobby beef: Why did SCotUS let them get away with the birth control thing?

[unblock]

4. because they're a business

and this scotus believes that businesses have rights, but ordinary people don't.

[UTUSN]

5. Whew, thanks!1 When I saw there was a Reply I thought some high flown Legal authority here

was going to give me another scourging!1

[UTUSN]

18. On my 2nd thought, digesting your nuanced posts, you support the individual bucking Walgreens,no?

[unblock]

21. well, now that i've read a bit more of the actual facts of the case,

it's not so clear, and i now understand why the supreme court decided not to bother with it as it's not the kind of "clean" case they usually pick to establish some clear guidance for lower courts.

they assigned him saturday hours but gave him the option to swap out hours with other people, but the onus was on him to do so.

personally, i don't think that's enough, i think the business should avoid scheduling him saturday hours in the first place. scheduling and making reasonable accommodations for protected rights is the employers job, imho.

but they did allow some flexibility to accommodate him and it appears he didn't avail himself of all that they did allow by not reaching out to all the people who might have been able to cover for him. so it's a bit messy.

so i'd likely come down on the side of the individual in this case, but i can see the argument that he didn't try hard enough to swap out his saturday hours.

[UTUSN]

22. At least you're judicious opining unlike those who scourge me !1

[shanti]

7. Saturday

He's SDA.

[unblock]

3. i think the "religious liberty" argument has been overused/abused recently,

but this one seems straight up the middle to me. not working on the day you consider the sabbath is pretty basic and not controversial.

i'm baffled at the notion that scheduling training during the regular work week, whether during regular work hours or during the evenings, would pose an "undue burden" on the company. or that there wasn't another instructor they could have found to handle any saturday work.


typical of the right-wing supreme court. freedom and things like religious rights apply for businesses, not for ordinary people.

[onenote]

9. The underlying facts of this case are described in the 11th circuit opinion

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/16-16923/16-16923-2018-03-09.html

[unblock]

11. thanks. i can see why the supreme court refused to consider this case

it's not a "clean" case, and the issues are more muddled than the original story suggests.

there's a question as to whether the employee tried hard enough to swap shifts, for example, or whether the employer tried hard enough to accommodate his religious restrictions.

not as clear-cut as them simply saying, hey, you have to work on your sabbath. no? ok, then, you're fired.



that said, my own view is that the company was wrong to have ever scheduled shifts for him on saturday period. it shouldn't be on him to get scheduled saturday shifts and put it on him to find someone else to swap with. that's an employer's job, imho.

[Midnight Writer]

6. Walgreen's has no obligation to comply with imaginary laws from an imaginary deity.

It is not discriminatory to require the same duties as the rest of the employees.

[unblock]

8. uh, no, actually, that's not correct at all.

employers (at least over a certain number of employees) do have to avoid discriminating against people on religious grounds.

walgreen's has no obligations to be closed on saturday or sunday even if some people consider either or those days the sabbath. in that sense, you're correct, they're under no obligation to comply with, as you say, "imaginary laws from an imaginary deity".

but it shouldn't be able to force employees to work on a day the employee considers to be the sabbath, and it should make reasonable allowances for this. pretty simple scheduling should have solved this matter, rather than forcing someone to make a choice between their religion and their job.

[Midnight Writer]

12. So any person professing to be Christian should not have to work on a Sunday?

We actually had this policy in my workplace, and you would be amazed how many were Born Again overnight.

Saturday is a choice day off. It likely coincides with the kids out of school or the spouse being "off". Why should the non Seventh Day Adventist employees have to sacrifice their preferred day off? What if every employee decided their imaginary God wanted them to rest on Saturday? Or to not work after dark? That burden is then forced upon the non-religious workers, and that is discriminatory.

[unblock]

13. i get that there's room for fraud in practice, but legally, it has to be a sincerely held belief

an employer could treat your claim as a non-religious preference to have saturday off if they had reason to believe you don't really have a religious restriction to working on saturday.

if the employer finds out that you're an uber driver on saturdays, for instance, then they can certainly stop treating it as a religious restriction. in fact, they could fire you for lying.

i don't see how it's discriminatory in any real way against people who have no such restrictions. if everyone in the company observed either saturday or sunday as the sabbath, the company could still operate, as there are people available on both days. people with no such restrictions are available both or either days, how is that a problem as long as they're getting paid and getting the appropriate number of days off?

your arguments suggest that any employee's restriction is discrimination against other employees, which is not an argument that works under the law afaik. similarly for people with disabilities. if someone is wheelchair-bound, they either the company has to give them physical access to the parts of the building that they need to get at or they need to get different employees to do that part of the job. don't tell be it's discrimination against non-wheelchair-bound people that they're the ones who have to change the light bulb in the ceiling because the wheelchair-bound person can't do that if the company doesn't provide special tools for a wheelchair-bound person to do that.

it's not discrimination, it's reasonable accommodation.

[Midnight Writer]

15. "if they (employer) had reason to believe"? So, it is up to the employer?

"Reason to believe" is pretty vague.

Disability does not play into this case at all.

One does not choose to become disabled. Further, the disabled employee is accommodated because they cannot do the job, not because they have a superstitious aversion to fulfilling their duties. A Mail Carrier, for instance, is not accommodated if they believe that if they step on a sidewalk crack, they break their Mother's back.

One does choose their religion, and the obligations and sacrifices that come with their chosen belief.

If the plaintiff can prove there is a Supreme God, and further that the God has given the inviolable ruling that people can't work on Saturday, and further that the law of the God must be observed by even non believers, then there is a good case.

[unblock]

16. your seething contempt for religious views does not lend itself to cogent constitutional analysis.

the freedom to practice religion is guaranteed in the first amendment, even if it may be kinda "by choice".

you are aware that there are atheist who abide by religious restrictions, yes? i am a jewish atheist, and while i do not keep the sabbath, i do know other jewish atheists who do. belief in god being synonymous with religion is a very christian-centric view of religion, because that is the defining criterion of christianity (belief in god & jesus). most other religions *have* a mythology, but belief in it is not typically essential to be an adherent of that religion.

[DiverDave]

17. So, since I don't believe

In your sky god, I have to work your holy days?
Your rights end where mine begin.

[unblock]

20. what right of yours is being infringed?

you have no religious objection to working saturday or sunday so it's merely a matter of convenience for you.

refusing to be inconvenienced to make allowances for other people's protected rights is called "bigotry".

also please note, i'm an atheist and i don't observe any holy days. have and will continue to work weekends as my job find necessary and don't have any particular problem with this.

[DiverDave]

24. So I'm a BIGOT?

I don't care about working pn the weekend. I do care if it infringes on me seeing my kids play sports.
Bigot. You got some nerve.
Putting you on ingnore now you self righteous, self centered, ignoramus.
BTW, how does it feel? To be judged by a complete stranger?

[unblock]

25. Awesome! I'm on "ingnore"! Not sure what that is but sounds cool!

[Coventina]

19. This is actually the employee's fault. He took a position that requires "urgent" training sessions.

(He's the trainer).

He's had issues in the past, trying to find replacements for times when he needed to show up at times not convenient for him.
This time, he couldn't find anyone, and still refused to show up for work.

He never should have taken that position, if he was going to put his faith over his job.

[unblock]

23. i can see that argument, which is why i can see why the supreme court decided not to hear the case

but my own view is that the employer shouldn't have scheduled him for saturday hours in the first place. they knew his religious objection and shouldn't have had an issue with scheduling other people who didn't have a problem with working saturdays.

i also don't know enough of the details, but it seems to me unlikely that they couldn't have found a way to avoid saturdays entirely.

i do understand that in the final instance, they had minimal notice that they had to close a call center and therefore they had very few days to choose from for the urgent training, but that doesn't explain the other days.


to my mind, the real question is whether or not the company could reasonably accommodate his religious restriction. i don't know enough about that business in particular, and it's entirely possible that saturdays were unavoidable. but i find it hard to believe that they couldn't have found a way to accommodate.

given that he told them up front he couldn't work saturdays, i find it hard to see as compelling his not showing up on a saturday as a argument for dismissal.

[Coventina]

26. If you accept a critical position in a company, crying religious exemption is bullshit.

He accepted that position, knowing that he would be called upon in times of crisis.

He'd dodged it before, by getting others to sub for him. This time, nobody could, and he just didn't show up.
That's unacceptable.

I know we like to hate on corporations here, but this guy was being a selfish prick. He wanted the position and its benefits, but didn't want to do the job. I would have fired his ass as well, if I were his boss.

[unblock]

27. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the employer to call the other trainers

If he was the only one available, and refused, and if the training session being on Saturday was unavoidable, then yeah, ok, I get it.

But I don't think it should be on him to reach out to all the other trainers. Scheduling is an employer's responsibility.

[Coventina]

28. Every job I've ever had, and most of the jobs my friends and family have

have always put the responsibility of finding a shift replacement on the employee, if the employee is scheduled for a shift and doesn't want to work it.

He shirked his duty and didn't show up for his scheduled time. That's what's called "job abandonment" and is grounds for termination.

[unblock]

29. You're not addressing any constitutional question

In most states, you can be fired on an arbitrary whim, so job abandonment is overkill for justifying a firing where there is no constitutional question.

But here there is a claim of first amendment religious protection. As it stands, he can't be fired unless accommodating his religious requirements would pose an "undue burden" on the company.

I don't think the employer scheduling slightly differently constitutes an "undue burden".

[Coventina]

30. Of course it was an undue burden! It was time-critical training that had to be done in a few days.

He didn't show up for his shift.

The guy knew this was an issue, and instead of keeping his prior position, he took the one that put his faith and his employers' needs in conflict, then, chose his faith, not his job.

Again: I'd fire his ass as well!

[Raven123]

10. Perfectly faithful to their practice of corporatocracy

[Caliman73]

14. Exactly!

I saw the thread headline and thought, "Hmm big business' money v. religious freedom" Of course they would go for the profits of big business.

Same thing with Hobby Lobby. They didn't rule on "religious freedom" there. They saw that a big business was going to have to spend more money on comprehensive insurance and decided that they shouldn't have to spend that money. They just used Religious Freedom as the excuse.

The current court LOVES Big Business and profits WAY more than they support religious freedom.