Let’s play claim or no claim. The IT manager for Fort Bend County is told that she must work on a July 4 weekend because the county courts are moving into a new building. It is all hands on deck time. She tells her boss, however, that she can’t because she is attending a community service event at her church (namely, a groundbreaking for a new building) and then a congregant lunch. Her boss says that if she doesn’t show up, she will be fired. She doesn’t. And she is. Is there a religious discrimination claim: yes or no? “No,” according to the district court but “yes” (2-1 vote) according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Davis v. Fort Bend County (Aug. 26, 2014). Why? After all, she was not coming to work because she needed to attend a religious service or teach Sunday School or meet with a prayer group. But, the Fifth Circuit said that the tenets of a faith mattered zip in determining whether the ground breaking/lunch was a religious practice. No, according to the opinion, all that matters is her subjective belief—[In her] “scheme of things”—as to whether attendance was a religious practice. So, summary judgment was inappropriate, and a jury will decide the sincerity of her religious belief.
The county also raised the defense that to accommodate her conflict between her work and her “religion” would cause an undue burden upon it. The appeals court majority gave a short shrift to the defense. Why? The IT manager had arranged a substitute and thus whether there would be no undue burden on the county would be up to a jury. The dissent was restrained: “Even the majority would agree that any surgeon that made an accommodation cannot merely substitute the hospital janitor, no matter how willing he is to volunteer…” Because the dissent said there is no evidence of the volunteer’s qualification, the undue burden defense was viable, and summary judgment on it should have been affirmed.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.
For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]
