Dive Temporary:
- P.F. Chang’s pays $80,000 to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Alternative Fee cost alleging that an Alabama restaurant refused to rent an applicant who requested Sundays off due to his non secular beliefs, EEOC mentioned in a press launch Monday.
- The company mentioned an investigation confirmed that the worker’s request constituted a non secular lodging request and that the chain didn’t rent him due to the request. EEOC alleged that this motion violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The events engaged in pre-litigation conciliation in an effort to resolve the cost.
- P.F. Chang’s agreed to supply again pay and compensatory and punitive damages in addition to revise its insurance policies and procedures on non secular lodging, per EEOC. The company additionally mentioned the chain would implement coaching for employees, together with HR personnel, on equal employment alternative rights and tasks.
Dive Perception:
Schedule adjustments to accommodate non secular observations are a typical instance of non secular lodging below Title VII, in keeping with an EEOC reality sheet. The legislation prohibits employers from refusing to rent, terminating or in any other case discriminating in opposition to somebody who requires an lodging that may very well be offered with out undue hardship.
“We commend P.F. Chang’s for his or her dedication to making sure that their eating places make affordable efforts to accommodate staff’ sincerely held non secular beliefs,” Bradley Anderson, director of the EEOC’s Birmingham, Alabama, district workplace, mentioned within the press launch. “This case ought to function a reminder for employers to coach supervisors and representatives to acknowledge requests for non secular lodging.”
Refusal to rent an applicant has been cited in different EEOC non secular bias litigation, together with in 2024, when a Kentucky-based grocer settled with the company over claims that it didn’t rent a job applicant who refused to chop his dreadlocks.
Employers are nonetheless grappling with a landmark 2023 U.S. Supreme Court docket determination, Groff v. DeJoy, that modified the usual by which undue hardship is evaluated with respect to non secular lodging below Title VII. By the way, the plaintiff in Groff was a former U.S. Postal Service worker who requested Sundays off in an effort to observe the Sabbath.
A unanimous court docket held in Groff that undue hardship solely exists below Title VII if a proposed non secular lodging poses a considerable burden within the general context of an employer’s enterprise. Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the choice, wrote that employers might take into consideration elements resembling the character of their enterprise, dimension and working prices when evaluating such lodging.
Put up-Groff lawsuits difficult employers’ undue hardship defenses haven’t been uniformly profitable, nonetheless. Earlier this month, the ninth U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals held {that a} hearth division didn’t discriminate in opposition to a gaggle of staff who requested a vaccine exemption due to their non secular beliefs. The court docket wrote that the proposed lodging posed an undue hardship on the fireplace division’s operations.
EEOC has repeatedly taken the stance that schedule adjustments could also be affordable below Title VII. In July, the company sued an auto producer for allegedly denying a employee’s request for day without work to watch the Sabbath and take unpaid day without work for Passover. The case stays in litigation.
One month later, EEO’s Workplace of Federal Operations issued a call discovering that the U.S. Division of Veterans Affairs did not accommodate a Muslim worker’s request to attend weekly prayer service. The choice is a part of a broader emphasis on safety of spiritual freedom within the office throughout the Trump administration’s first yr.
