Balint v. Carson City, Nevada

[Prof. Steven D. Jamar]

This decision clearly continues the anemic approach to "undue hardship"
under which almost any  inconvenience is enough to meet the standard.  Here,
since the accommodation would have disrupted a working non-discriminatory
system, the hardship was felt to be undue.

Bad decision.  But then, I think most of the accommodation decisions
applying the undue hardship defense in favor of a defendant are poor.

Note the radically different approach of the courts to accommodating the
non-religious employee in the religious secular employer setting.  There, it
seems, no accommodation can be too much.

Cheers,
Steve

Rick Garnett wrote:

> 144 F.3d 1225 (9th Cir. 1998).
>
> An employee sued under Title VII for religious discrimination.  The Court
> held that the employer was not required to alter an existing, bona fide,
> seniority based system of allocating work shifts to accommodate a
> sabbath observer's religious needs.
>
> The Court acknowledged that an employer has a duty to accommodate
> religious practices unless it would cause "undue hardship."  However, it
> noted that it is not an unlawful employment practice to apply different
> "terms, privileges, or conditions" of employment under a bona fide
> seniority system.  The employer argued that, given the seniority system,
> ANY accommodation requirement would impose an undue hardship.
> There was no duty to accommodate the employee's need not to work on
> Saturday's even if the particular accommodation had only a de minimis
> impact on the employer's sytem.
>
> Any thoughts?  The Ninth Circuit has apparently sua sponte en banc-ed
> this case.
>
> Rick Garnett


--
Steven D. Jamar
Professor of Law
Director, Legal Research & Writing Program
Howard University School of Law
2900 Van Ness Street N.W.
Washington, D.C.  20008
United States of America

vox:  202-806-8017  fax:  202-806-8428
email:  sjamar at law.howard.edu