The Fourth Circuit recently affirmed that a reasonable accommodation of an employee’s religious beliefs is not required if such accommodation would cause an undue hardship. That is, an accommodation is not necessary if it would result in more than a de minimis cost to the employer. EEOC v. Thompson Contracting, Grading, Paving, & Utils. Inc., No. 11-11897 (4th Cir. Dec. 14, 2012) (unpublished).
Banayah Yisrael worked for Thompson Contracting, a company that provided transportation-related grading, paving, and utility services in North Carolina. Most of the company’s 250 employees were general equipment operators, a position not requiring a CDL. Yisrael, on the other hand, was one of eight Thompson employees with a CDL, enabling him to drive dump trucks and other vehicles.
Although Thompson typically operated Monday through Friday, the nature of its work necessitated frequent Saturday work. This created an issue for Yisrael, a practicing Hebrew Israelite who observes the Saturday Sabbath. In November 2004, Yisrael begin his second stint with Thompson as a dump truck driver (he was fired two months earlier for marijuana use). Thompson was aware of Yisrael’s religious beliefs. As with Yisrael’s first period of employment with Thompson, the company scheduled him to work on Saturday. The first time Yisrael failed to show on Saturday, he escaped discipline. The second time Yisrael failed to show on Saturday resulted in a written warning, which stated that a third no-show would result in termination. Yisrael’s third Saturday no show occurred on February 12, 2005. That day, Thompson’s full contingent of dump truck drivers were working, except for Yisrael. Thompson enlisted twelve contractors to drive the trucks as well.
Before being terminated, Yisrael filed a charge with the EEOC. He was fired three days later for failure to “have regular and dependable attendance.” The EEOC suit alleged that Thompson failed to accommodate Yisrael’s religious beliefs. The trial court granted Thompson’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that the discharge was performance-related. The EEOC appealed.
On appeal, the issue was whether Thompson could meet its burden of showing that a reasonable accommodation was offered or that an accommodation was not offered because it would have created an undue hardship. The Fourth Circuit rejected the EEOC’s reasonable accommodation suggestions as unduly burdensome. First, the company was not required to rely on other employees to pick up the slack and/or rely on independent contractors because doing so would be substantially more expensive. Second, Thompson was not expected to train other properly licensed employees in order to fill in for Yisrael; creating a pool of substitute drivers would impose an undue hardship. Third, transferring Yisrael to another position was not a requisite accommodation, because Thompson reasonably believed that the employee would have rejected the move. Each of these proposals would have resulted in more than de minimis expenses to Thompson, and therefore, were unduly burdensome.
Though an unpublished opinion, Thompson is a useful reminder of what is required for religious accommodation under Title VII. Employers are required to reasonably accommodate employees’ and applicants’ religious beliefs unless doing so would create an undue hardship. Significant costs are, under the right situation, an undue burden.