Christian letter carrier Gerald Groff claims USPS violated his religious freedom by forcing him to work on Sundays.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear a religious liberty case that wants to make it simpler for employees to sue their employers for discrimination when mistreated because of their religion.
The Supreme Court will hear the case of Groff v. DeJoy; it involves a Christian mail carrier named Gerald Groff, who claims the United States Postal Service wrongfully discriminated against him because he refused to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays, which he observes as the Sabbath and on which no work is to be done.
From 2012 through 2019, Groff worked as an auxiliary postmaster in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. With the 2013 deal between USPS and Amazon for package delivery, employees were mandated to work Sunday hours to accommodate weekend deliveries.
At first, he was able to negotiate with higher-ups for a transfer to a different branch that did not make Sunday deliveries. When that location started delivering on Sundays, Groff could leave work if he found someone to fill in for him. However, Groff could not make it to over a dozen of his Sunday duties and had to miss them.
Groff quit his work in 2019 because he feared being fired for skipping Sunday duties. Then he filed a federal lawsuit against the Postal Service with the help of the conservative First Liberty Institute, Baker Botts LLP, the Church State Council, and the Independence Law Center.
Groff claims that USPS could have worked around his religious convictions by rearranging his work schedule so that he wasn’t required to work on Sundays. However, in May of 2022, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that USPS would experience an undue burden if it made any more accommodations for Groff.
It is illegal under federal law to discriminate against or terminate an employee because of their religious beliefs or practices unless the employer can demonstrate that it would be an “undue hardship” to make reasonable accommodations for the employee’s religious beliefs or practices. When the lodging expense is more significant than a trivial or minimal cost, the Supreme Court ruled in Trans World Airlines v. Hardison in 1977 that an “undue hardship” is inflicted on employers.
Providing more assistance to Groff would impose an unreasonable hardship on USPS and his coworkers, according to the 3rd Circuit’s opinion.
Groff argues that it should be more straightforward for workers to file Title VII claims for religious discrimination, and he wants the Supreme Court to reconsider the “undue burden” requirement.
First Liberty senior lawyer Stephanie Taub stated after petitioning the Supreme Court to hear Groff’s case in August 2022, “No American should be forced to choose between their faith and their work.” We urge the Court to reverse a decision from the 1970s that “tilt the scale in favor of companies and the government against the religious freedom of employees” due to its weak reasoning.
“Many religions place a premium on keeping the Sabbath holy, seeing it as a day set apart by God. A job shouldn’t require someone to work on the Sabbath if they don’t want to, “Independent Law Center’s Randall Wenger chimed in.
Republican appointees make up a majority (6-3) of the Supreme Court and tend to be more receptive to arguments for religious liberty. Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch have all wanted to reconsider the Court’s “undue burden” criterion from 1977.