Employment & Labor Publications

Reasonable Accommodation of Beliefs After Cosme

By Stuart M. Katz

Arbitrary Demands Need Not Be Accommodated

How far must an employer go to accommodate an employee's religious beliefs?
Does an employer have to grant the accommodation that the employee requests?
Most employers know that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e, et seq., prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion and requires employers to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious needs. What employers must do in order to comply with Title VII's requirements, though, is not always clear.

In March 2002, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2^nd Circuit issued its opinion in Cosme v. Henderson. In this most recent interpretation of Title VII's requirements for reasonable accommodation of religion, the court clearly held that reasonable accommodation of an employee's religious beliefs and practices does not require employers to accede to arbitrary and impractical demands that employees might make. This decision succinctly affirms that in order to avoid Title VII liability for religious discrimination, an employer must be reasonable, but need not offer the specific accommodation requested by the employee.

The Facts
The plaintiff, Louis Cosme, worked for the U.S. Postal Service as a letter carrier. Cosme also adhered to the tenets of the Worldwide Church of God, which requires that members observe its Sabbath, which runs from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset.
Prior to mid-1992, the plaintiff drove a postal truck and delivered parcel post with a fixed Monday-Friday schedule. In mid-1992, because of a reorganization, five of the six parcel post delivery trucks in this particular postal station were eliminated. The driver assigned to the remaining truck had a Monday-Friday schedule, with every Saturday and Sunday off. When that driver resigned, his position opened for bidding by other station employees. When the position was posted, however, the only fixed day off was Sunday, with the off Saturday rotating weekly among the other postal drivers.

The plaintiff, who had the most seniority of the remaining drivers, insisted that his manager had changed the schedule to discriminate against him. The manager offered a legitimate business reason for the change, citing the minimization of overtime hours needed to cover all routes.
When the plaintiff bid on the position, his manager told him that he would have to work Saturdays if he got the job. She urged him, instead, to remain an "unassigned regular," which would allow her to accommodate his scheduling needs. The manager also gave the plaintiff the opportunity to work at other station locations where he could have every Saturday off, but the plaintiff declined this offer because he would have suffered a 90-day loss of seniority.

After winning the position, the plaintiff refused to work on Saturdays and simply failed to report on Saturdays that he was scheduled to work. Following a series of progressive discipline steps, the plaintiff reached an agreement with the postal service whereby he worked four days at his usual station, had Saturdays off and worked Sundays at a different station.
But the story does not end here. In 1994, the plaintiff applied for a postal inspector position. During the evaluation process, the inspector performing the review learned that the plaintiff previously had been censured for leaving the scene of and failing to report an accident, and for making an illegal U-turn. The inspector also learned that the plaintiff had failed to report to work on numerous Saturdays, due to his religious beliefs. The inspector recommended against hiring the plaintiff for the postal inspector position and the plaintiff did not get the job.

The plaintiff brought suit under Title VII, claiming that he was unlawfully discriminated against because of his religion (1) when he was denied reasonable accommodation for his Sabbath observance; and (2) when he was denied a promotion based on the same failure to reasonably accommodate his religious practices.

The Trial Court Decision
After a bench trial, the District Court determined that the accommodations offered to the plaintiff were reasonable and represented good-faith attempts at accommodation, despite the 90-day loss of seniority that would have come with a transfer.
The District Court found that the plaintiff's failure to report for work was not justified and that the resultant disciplinary action was appropriate. Moreover, the District Court found no factual basis to support the plaintiff's claim that the denial of his promotion to postal inspector was motivated by discrimination.
After judgment entered in favor of the postal service, the plaintiff appealed.

The 2^nd Circuit Decision
The Second Circuit affirmed the District Court's ruling, reviewing Title VII's requirement that "when an employee has a genuine religious practice that conflicts with a requirement of employment, his or her employer, once notified, must offer the aggrieved employee a reasonable accommodation, unless doing so would cause the employer to suffer an undue hardship." The court noted that, "[i]n formulating such an accommodation, both the employer and employee should remain flexible, with an eye toward achieving a mutually acceptable result."
Here, the court found no basis to disturb the District Court's finding that the plaintiff has been offered accommodations. The court also determined that the accommodations offered were reasonable, because they "would have eliminated that conflict between the employment requirement, working on Saturdays, and the employee's religious practice of not working on the Saturday Sabbath." The court stressed that Title VII did not require the postal service to give the plaintiff multiple choices - any option that would have reasonably accommodated the plaintiff's religious practices would have satisfied Title VII's requirements.

The Lesson
What do we learn from Cosme?
First, Title VII does not necessarily stack the deck in favor of employees. Instead, Title VII provides opportunities for compromise, with an emphasis on fairness. Cosme affirms the principle that employers must accommodate employees' religious practices. At the same time, though, Cosme demonstrates that while an employer must in good faith offer a reasonable accommodation, it is not necessary to offer the specific accommodation sought by the employee.
Often, employees seeking accommodation of religious practices believe that the particular accommodation they request should be automatically granted. Almost as often, employers fear the discrimination lawsuit that will follow if the requested accommodation is not granted. Cosme serves as a reality check for both employers and employees.