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

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Reuters via Yahoo!

World

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

By Andrew Chung, Reuters • February 24, 2020

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (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.

{snip}

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-supreme-court-turns-away-145235665.html

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. "undue hardship on Walgreens": undue portion for richies by way of cons judges. . . . nt

[Mz Pip]

2. Correct ruling IMHO

This seemed like a set up to me to go to court to expand religious freedom. The person who applied for the job must have known there would be requirements to work on Saturdays.

[Coventina]

4. Anyone who takes a job for a call center knows nights and weekends are going to be required.

Yeah, this was an attempt to give religious people special rights.

[Igel]

16. I think the key word here is "urgent."

Not routine. Not usual. Otherwise he'd have washed out by the end of his probationary period.

He was a trainer. I don't know that most trainers do their thing during the midnight shift.

[Coventina]

21. From the additional details: it seems his position of trainer included a number of "urgent"

training situations.

He should not have taken that position, if he can't handle being there for emergency training situations.

This is on the employee.

He put his faith before his job, Walgreens was right to fire him. They need a trainer they can depend on.

[forgotmylogin]

20. Yes, In my experience, call center work always gives you shift expectations up front.

They always say if you need some sort of special clearance, mention it early before you are hired and start work.

[Midnight Writer]

13. I agree. Should we relieve every Christian of Sunday work?

Unless the plaintiff can prove that there is an all powerful God, that the laws of this God supersede all other rules, and that this God entity has definitively ruled that folk can't work on Saturday, then there is no case.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. So owners' religious beliefs matter, but employees' beliefs don't

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. 682 (2014), is a landmark decision[1][2] in United States corporate law by the United States Supreme Court allowing closely held for-profit corporations to be exempt from a regulation its owners religiously object to, if there is a less restrictive means of furthering the law's interest, according to the provisions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores,_Inc.

SCOTUS appears to be ruling on religion, but are really ruling on privacy rights (ownership), hierarchy, and power.

That's my take on it.

[Coventina]

5. I agree that was a shit ruling. This would have been a shit ruling if the employee had won.

2 wrongs don't make a right, in this case.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Oh, I agree with you, it just seems like they're siding

with owners - the bosses - in both cases.

[Coventina]

7. Yeah, I have to agree that it was probably more about who brought the suit

than the actual issue involved.

I no longer have any faith in the judiciary. (aside from RGB).

[kiri]

8. can any cult belief can be exempted?

But we don't want a nation where anyone can sit up and claim some religious stuff that exempts him/her from all the laws. This is happening now via the evangelical right.

What do general laws for society mean if any cult belief can be exempted?

Red lights have infringed on my freedom of religion for decades.

Remember the Establishment Clause?

[stopdiggin]

9. right. this is (IMO) a VERY slippery slope

It frustrates the hell out of me that I can't seem to get across ..

This religious freedoms campaign is heading us toward a very dark place. Medical providers with religious exemptions from working with certain patients, or providing certain procedures or services? WTF?

[NurseJackie]

10. Good ruling.

Has the USSC addressed yet any cases where someone refused to full a birth control Rx (or any Rx) because of their religious beliefs?

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. What is an "urgent training session"?

And why would it have to be held on a Saturday?

Since this is a huge corporation, I have my doubts that they had a truly urgent need for him, and only him, to give training on that Saturday that couldn't have been foreseen in time to do on the Friday, or delayed until the Monday (or done on the Sunday if no employee objected then).

On edit - the employee's side of the argument:

Patterson worked at Walgreens for several years with a longstanding agreement that he would not work on the Sabbath. But in 2011, Patterson’s supervisors scheduled him for a last-minute training session on a Saturday to address an error made by Walgreens executives. Though the training could have been completed Friday, Sunday or Monday, Patterson was required to complete the training on Saturday.

He tried unsuccessfully to trade shifts with a coworker, and ultimately completed the training on Monday (ahead of the deadline), but he was still fired for missing his Saturday shift. Patterson sued Walgreens in a Florida federal district court, which ruled in favor of his former employer. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit also sided with the company. In 2018, Patterson filed a petition for the case to be heard by the Supreme Court.

https://www.nadadventist.org/news/us-department-justice-urges-supreme-court-hear-adventists-sabbath-accommodation-case

[Farmer-Rick]

12. Yes, but what if Walgreens belonged to a religion that couldn't work on Saturdays?

Would everyone have to work because the corporation couldn't or would no one work because they all must bow to their corporate overlords? I would like to see the Supremes rule on that one.

[aggiesal]

14. Ever heard of Chick-fil-a? n/t

[Igel]

17. This doesn't lead anywhere useful.

If the employer says, "Closed on every third Wednesday of the month," I don't think employees have much say in demanding that they stay open.

Whether the employer considers it something binding just on him or on his actions (which would include authorizing work) is really up to the employer.

I recently bought something online. I tried to complete the purchase but there was a time difference between me and the store. I was told to try again Saturday evening. The store's owned by conservative (or orthodox) Jews and the sun had set where they were. Trade on the sabbath is forbidden. So I saved my cart and went back 25 hours later.

[onenote]

15. Details

The 11th Circuit panel that ruled unanimously against Patterson (the employee) was made up of a GHW Bush nominee, a Barack Obama nominee, and a Trump nominee.

The court of appeals found that Patterson had made out a prima facie case of religious discrimination. At that point, under the law, the burden shifts to the employer to establish that it had made a reasonable effort to accommodate the employee's religious observances and the employee must show he/she made a good faith effort to accept the accommodation offered by the employer.

In this case, Patterson started working for Walgreen's in 2005. As an accommodation to his religious observances, the store agreed not to assign him to Saturday shifts. This worked well and Patterson was promoted from customer care representative to training instructor. His employer at that time agreed to schedule training sessions only on Sunday through Thursday.

Where emergencies arose and a training session had to be conducted on Friday night or Saturday, Patterson was given the opportunity to swap shifts with another employee, an option he took on several occasions. However, in 2011, in response to an order of the Alabama Board of Pharmacy, Walgreen's was given 48 hours to shift customer care responsibility for calls coming from Alabama to the Orlando care center. In order to train the Orlando staff to handle the calls coming from out of state, Walgreen scheduled an emergency training session for Saturday. Patterson was given the option of trying to find a substitute. However, he only tried one other employee (another instructor) who was not available. Even though other non-instructors could have taken over the role in a pinch, he didn't try anyone else. Consequently, the training session had to be delayed.

Because he could not guarantee that he would work on a Saturday if not other option was available and the employer could not guarantee that there would always be another option available, it was suggested that he return to his position as a customer care representative where there would be a larger pool of potential substitutes. He rejected that offer, at which point he was terminated.

It's a tough case. Employers are expected to make a reasonable effort to accommodate an employee's religious observances but aren't required to force others to work in the employee's place. The fact that the District Court and a unanimous appeals court reached the same conclusion suggests that this is one of those cases that produces a result that really isn't all that satisfactory but is consistent with the law.

[Igel]

18. The added detail matters.

They tried to reach an accommodation. Simply firing him for missing that shift wouldn't have solved their immediate problem--nobody there to staff that session--and if they had gone 5 years with one such incident that seems like not such a big deal.

Can't rule out that the supervisor who ultimately fired him didn't harbor some animus, but given the facts it seems not unreasonable.

[Progressive Jones]

19. In the context of every little inconvenience being called "religious persecution",

this is a good judgement in this case.

I'm sorry, but we do not live in a theocracy in the US.

Religion is required by the Constitution to be allowed to exist, but there is no special treatment beyond that.

[TomSlick]

22. Walgreens is open seven days a week.

If you hire on with Walgreens, you know that. Whether your day of religious observance is Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, an employer is not required to give you the day off. If you simply cannot work on your religion's day of observance, don't go to work for an employer that expects people to work on that day.

If an employer that expects employees to work on Sundays gives Christians Sundays off, it must allow members of other faiths to have the day off for their religion's day of religious observance. It becomes a matter of religious discrimination only if the members of one faith are treated differently than others.