Legal Commentary

Does Trucking Company Have a Legal Duty to Accommodate Muslim Employee?s Religious Objections to Transporting Alcohol or Tobacco?

By Eugene Volokh

That?s the argument made in Reedy v. Schneider National, Inc. (E.D. Pa. filed Oct. 15, 2010). Vasant Reddy says that he has ?a sincerely held religious belief that he cannot consume, possess, or transport alcohol or tobacco,? and that he informed Schneider National of this. He also says that ?less than 5% of the loads Defendant transported contained alcohol and/or tobacco,? which means that it would not have been an ?undue hardship? for Schneider to accommodate him. Nonetheless, he says, he was ordered to transport a load with alcohol, and was fired because he refused to transport it. (See the Philadelphia Inquirer for more.)

As I?ve argued before, there?s nothing legally novel about most religious accommodation demands from Muslims. They are in many ways quite similar to such demands brought by adherents to other religions, and under well-established American religious accommodation law some such demands must be accommodated and others need not be. I summarize some of the general rules imposed by federal religious accommodation law here, but the brief summary is this: An employer must give religious employees special exemptions from generally applicable job requirements if (1) the requirements interfere with an employee?s sincerely felt religious obligations and (2) such an exemption doesn?t impose ?undue hardship on the conduct of the employer?s business.? 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j); TWA v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977).

It seems likely that Reddy satisfies element 1 of the test; whether he satisfies element 2 depends on how costly it is for the employer to accommodate him. Even a modest cost might be seen as an ?undue hardship? on the employer, but if the cost is very slight ? perhaps because indeed there are very few loads that contain alcohol or tobacco, and those loads could easily be parceled out to others without substantial expense or substantial unfairness to Reddy?s coworkers ? then the employer could be liable for failing to accommodate Reddy.

The careful reader might recognize that Reddy?s objection is in some ways similar to the county clerk?s religious objection to processing same-sex domestic partnership applications; I blogged earlier this month about a district court?s decision to let the county clerk?s case go forward. Moreover, it?s pretty well-established that Title VII does apply to religious exemptions to behavior that is a small part of one?s duties. See, e.g., Tramm v. Porter Mem?l Hosp., No. H 87?355, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16391, at *33 (N.D. Ind. Dec. 22, 1989) (concluding that a hospital had to reasonably accommodate a nurse who objected to cleaning instruments that had been and would be used in abortions, applying Title VII and the Free Exercise Clause); American Postal Workers Union v. Postmaster Gen., 781 F.2d 772, 777 (9th Cir. 1986) (concluding that government employer had a duty to reasonably accommodate, by arranging transfers to other jobs, postal workers who had a religious objection to processing draft registration forms); Best v. California Apprenticeship Council, 207 Cal. Rptr. 863, 868 (Ct. App. 1984) (concluding that an apprentice training organization ? which was treated by state law as an employer ? had an obligation to accommodate an apprentice?s religious objection to working in a nuclear power plant); and other cases cited in this footnote. In each such case under Title VII, of course, the employee would have to show that exempting him from the religiously objectionable duties would not be an undue hardship on the employer.

Maybe it?s bad for federal law to impose such an obligation on employers, whether because the law is too vague, imposes unduly on private employers, imposes unduly on coworkers, gives an undue preference to conscientious objectors (it has been interpreted to apply to nonreligious conscientious objectors as well as religious ones), or something else. But it does impose such an obligation, and provides a valuable benefit to religious objectors. Muslims are no more and no less entitled to this benefit than are Christians, Jews, or others.

Thanks to Prof. Howard Friedman (Religion Clause) for the pointer.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on October 25, 2010 (boomark / email).