The US Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision on June 29, 2023 in Groff v. DeJoy, revising the standard for undue hardship in the context of religious discrimination claims brought under Title VII. The Court held that an employer demonstrating a hardship that is merely “more than de minimis”—the previously accepted standard for undue hardship since 1977—is not sufficient. Instead, the Court clarified that an employer must demonstrate that the burden posed by accommodating an employee’s religious beliefs is “substantial” in the overall context of its business.
Gerald Groff, an Evangelical Christian, objected on religious grounds to delivering packages on Sundays and sought an accommodation from his former employer, the United States Postal Service (USPS), to avoid working on Sundays. Groff stated that he had to avoid work on Sundays to observe the Sabbath and could not engage in “secular labor.” After initially transferring to a location that did not make Sunday deliveries, he eventually became required to do so.
USPS tried to accommodate Groff’s request to avoid Sunday work by redistributing his deliveries among other employees, including those whose regular duties did not involve delivering mail. However, after repeated scheduling conflicts and overtime expenses for the other employees covering Groff’s Sunday shifts, USPS issued Groff progressive discipline for failing to work on Sundays, and he ultimately resigned in 2019. After resigning, Groff sued under Title VII, alleging that USPS could have accommodated his Sunday Sabbath practice without undue hardship.
The reviewing district court granted USPS’s motion for summary judgment, which the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. The Third Circuit found that USPS met the more than de minimis cost standard, concluding that exempting Groff from Sunday work had imposed additional duties on his co-workers, disrupted the workplace and workflow, and diminished employee morale.
In reviewing the Third Circuit’s opinion, the Supreme Court revisited the standard for undue hardship in the context of religious accommodation requests, which both parties agreed should be clarified.
Since 1977, many courts, including the lower courts in this case, had been relying on the standard articulated in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977), that undue hardship constitutes any effort or cost that is “more than de minimis.” The Supreme Court held that the “more than de minimis” standard from Hardison is not the correct articulation of undue hardship and clarified that an employer has met the undue hardship standard when it shows “that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.”
The Court further stated that “courts must apply the test in a manner that takes 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 declined to “ratify in toto” the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC’s) existing guidance, although it noted 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 today.”
The Court did not categorically rule that other employees taking on other duties or incurring overtime would be insufficient to show undue hardship. In addition, the Court did not issue a finding in favor of either party. Rather, it found that the “more than de minimis” standard was the wrong benchmark and, accordingly, it remanded the case to the district court for further review, potential additional discovery, and application of the clarified undue hardship standard.
Even with this heightened standard, it is very possible that the lower court will evaluate the various measures undertaken by USPS—allowing Groff to transfer to another USPS station; redistributing Groff’s Sunday deliveries to other staff, including but not limited to the postmaster; and forcing other carriers to deliver more mail—and again rule in favor of USPS, finding that it would have been an undue hardship to exempt Groff from Sunday work. Indeed, the Third Circuit’s decision already noted that the burden faced by USPS “far surpasses a de minimis burden.”
Justice Sotomayor wrote a concurrence, joined by Justice Jackson, where she pointed out that Title VII requires “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business,” which “plainly includes the management and performance of the business’s employees.” She therefore reasoned that where there is undue hardship on other employees, that can still be sufficient under the new substantial hardship standard, and she applauded the Court for not accepting Groff’s argument that a company has to show undue hardship on the business itself.
As Justice Sotomayor points out, where there are substantial costs based on “lost efficiency,” that can be substantial hardship depending on the circumstances.
It is now less clear exactly what types of burden will meet the new “substantial hardship” test.
The EEOC may issue updated guidance, and courts are certain to start grappling with the new standard. However, it is apparent that this standard is higher than the prior “more than de minimus” standard, and courts are required to conduct a nuanced and case-specific analysis when determining whether a requested accommodation would pose undue hardship.
Additionally, where an employer can show that granting multiple accommodation requests would create a high aggregate cost, such as with group requests or long-term requests, these factors are relevant to an undue hardship defense.
The Court also instructed courts to consider various factors, including but not limited to an employer’s nature, size, and operating cost, when evaluating the undue hardship to the employer.
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