Case Name: Barbara AUSTIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sandra BERRYMAN; Patrice Johnson; Joseph Hayes; Ralph Cantrell, Defendants-Appellants, v. NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT LAW PROJECT, INC., Amicus Curiae
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1989-06-28
Citations: 878 F.2d 786
Docket Number: No. 88-3948
Parties: Barbara AUSTIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sandra BERRYMAN; Patrice Johnson; Joseph Hayes; Ralph Cantrell, Defendants-Appellants, v. NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT LAW PROJECT, INC., Amicus Curiae.
Judges: Before ERVIN, Chief Judge, RUSSELL, WIDENER, HALL, PHILLIPS, MURNAGHAN, SPROUSE, CHAPMAN, WILKINSON, and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, sitting en banc.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 878
Pages: 786–791

Head Matter:
Barbara AUSTIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sandra BERRYMAN; Patrice Johnson; Joseph Hayes; Ralph Cantrell, Defendants-Appellants, v. NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT LAW PROJECT, INC., Amicus Curiae.
No. 88-3948.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued April 11, 1989.
Decided June 28, 1989.
J. Steven Sheppard, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Mary Sue Terry, Atty. Gen., on brief), for defendants-appellants.
Hugh F. O’Donnell (Martin D. Webgreit, Client Centered Legal Services of Southwest Virginia, Inc. on brief), for plaintiff-appellee.
(Elizabeth Athos, James Williams on brief), for amicus curiae Nat. Employment Law Project, Inc.
Before ERVIN, Chief Judge, RUSSELL, WIDENER, HALL, PHILLIPS, MURNAGHAN, SPROUSE, CHAPMAN, WILKINSON, and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, sitting en banc.
Judge Winter did not participate in en banc review.

Opinion:
MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge:
We have before us for en banc reconsideration an appeal taken from an action successfully brought by Barbara Austin in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia against the Virginia Employment Commission, challenging a denial of unemployment compensation benefits. The facts and procedural history of the action are detailed fully in the previous panel opinion, Austin v. Berryman, 862 F.2d 1050 (4th Cir.1988), and the decision of the district court. Austin v. Berryman, 670 F.Supp. 672 (W.D. Va. 1987).
In brief, Austin charged, inter alia, that the denial of her claim for unemployment benefits, based on a Virginia statute specifically precluding such benefits for any individual who voluntarily quits work to join his or her spouse in a new location, was an unconstitutional infringement upon the incidents of marriage protected by the fourteenth amendment and an unconstitutional burden on her first amendment right to the free exercise of her religion. Her religion happened to command that she follow her spouse wherever he might go and the sincerity of her religious belief was not questioned. The district court found in Austin's favor and awarded injunctive relief and retroactive benefits.
On appeal, Judge Sprouse, writing for a panel majority, found that the denial of benefits did not implicate Austin's fourteenth amendment rights, but that it did unconstitutionally burden Austin's right to the free exercise of her religion. The panel also found, however, that any award of retroactive benefits was barred by the eleventh amendment. One panel member concurred with the panel majority as to the fourteenth and eleventh amendment issues, but dissented as to the existence of a free exercise violation. The panel opinion now, of course, has been vacated by a grant of rehearing en banc.
After careful consideration of the additional arguments proffered by both sides, the Court, en banc, is convinced that the panel majority correctly concluded that denying Austin unemployment benefits did not infringe upon fundamental marital rights protected by the fourteenth amendment. To this extent, we adopt the majority panel opinion. We also find, however, that the denial of benefits did not unconstitutionally burden Austin's first amendment right to the free exercise of her religion. We are persuaded that the views expressed on the first amendment, free exercise of religion claim in the opinion dissenting in part from the panel majority are correct, and we hereby adopt that opinion as that of the en banc court. As we find that Austin is not entitled to any relief, we need not address whether the eleventh amendment bars an award of retroactive benefits.
The decisive consideration, as we see it, is that the proximate cause of Austin's unemployment is geographic distance, not her religious beliefs. There is no conflict between the circumstances of work and Austin's religious precepts. Austin's religious beliefs do not "require" her "to refrain from the work in question." Frazee v. Illinois Department of Employment Security, — U.S. -, -, 109 S.Ct. 1514, 1517, 103 L.Ed.2d 914 (1989). Austin is unable to work simply because she is now too far removed from her employer to make it practical. In striking contrast, if one, for genuine religious beliefs, moves to a new residence in order to continue to live with a spouse, and that residence is not geographically so removed as to preclude regular attendance at the worksite, no unemployment, and hence no unemployment benefits, will arise. That amounts to proof that extent of geographical non-propinquity, not religious belief, led to Austin's disqualification for unemployment benefits.
Austin voluntarily decided to quit her job and join her spouse in a new geographic location 150 miles away. Virginia has stated that every individual who follows such a course, no matter what the reason, religious or non-religious, is disqualified for unemployment benefits. To craft judicially a statutory exception only for those individuals who profess Austin's religious convictions, particularly in the absence of a direct conflict between a given employment practice and a religious belief, would, in our view, result in a subsidy to members of a particular religious belief, impermissible under the Establishment Clause. Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, 472 U.S. 703, 710, 105 S.Ct. 2914, 2918, 86 L.Ed.2d 557 (1985).
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is
REVERSED.
. We note that our conclusion in this regard is unaffected by the Supreme Court's most recent entry into the arena, Frazee v. Illinois Dep't of Employment Security, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 1514 (1989). In Frazee, the Court found a denial of unemployment compensation constituted an unconstitutional burden on the free exercise rights of an individual whose unemployment was occasioned by his refusal to work on his Sabbath. As in the cases cited by the panel majority, Frazee's unemployment was proximately caused by a conflict between a requirement of the employer and a religious belief of the employee. Such a causal connection does not exist here, as explained in the panel dissent.