Opinion ID: 463784
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Accommodation of Religious Practice

Text: 17 Title VII forbids an employer from firing an employee solely on the basis of his religion, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-2(a)(1), unless the employer can demonstrate that he is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee's ... religious observation or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e(j). We have described a plaintiff's prima facie case in a Title VII action alleging religious discrimination as a showing that his practices are religious and that these practices were the basis for his discharge. 5 If the plaintiff makes this showing, the burden shifts to the employer to demonstrate that he cannot accommodate the plaintiff's religious practice without undue hardship to his business. If the defendant successfully rebuts the prima facie case, the plaintiff, who has the ultimate burden of persuasion, must show that the employer's proffered reasons for failure to accommodate are a pretext for discrimination. Redmond v. GAF Corp., 574 F.2d at 901. 18 The district court was correct in finding that the plaintiff had made out a prima facie case of religious discrimination. We do not doubt that Reverend Baz's actions were religious within the meaning of the statute. Further, the district court found that the primary reason for Reverend Baz's discharge lay in his view of his ministry and his call to preach the Gospel. Baz v. Walters, 599 F.Supp. at 617. The burden thus shifted to the defendants to produce evidence tending to rebut the inference of discrimination raised by the plaintiff's prima facie case. The defendants produced evidence showing (1) that their primary motivation in terminating Reverend Baz was to further the primary purpose of the hospital, which is the overall well-being of the patients; (2) that Reverend Baz was unable to conform to the multi-disciplinary approach to patient care taken by the V.A. in a medical facility specializing in the care of psychiatric patients; (3) that they had attempted to offer Reverend Baz guidance in how to so conform; and (4) that accommodation in the form of a transfer of Reverend Baz to a non-psychiatric facility had been considered but rejected as an undue burden on the Chaplain Service and the V.A. The district court found that the defendants had met their burden of producing rebuttal evidence and that Reverend Baz had failed to carry his ultimate burden of persuasion with a showing that the proffered rebuttal was pretext. 19 Reverend Baz contends on appeal that the defendants did not meet their rebuttal burden because they did not show by objective, expert testimony that the health and welfare of the Danville patients was harmed by his evangelism at the hospital. But when Reverend Baz makes this objection, he is confusing the business necessity defense to a disparate impact cause of action with the undue hardship standard used to measure an employer's duty to accommodate to an employee's religious observances in a disparate treatment claim of religious discrimination. 6 In suits such as Reverend Baz's, the defendant need only introduce evidence to show that accommodation would create a hardship on his business. This hardship has been construed as anything more than a de minimis cost to the employer. Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63, 84, 97 S.Ct. 2264, 2276, 53 L.Ed.2d 113 (1977). The defendants are not required to show that their philosophy of total patient care is objectively better than that espoused by Reverend Baz; they need only show that it would be a hardship to accommodate his theology in view of their established theory and practice. 20 The defendants here have met this burden. They have produced evidence tending to show that Reverend Baz's philosophy of the care of psychiatric patients is antithetical to that of the V.A. To accommodate Reverend Baz's religious practices, they would have to either adopt his philosophy of patient care, expend resources on continually checking up on what Reverend Baz was doing or stand by while he practices his (in their view, damaging) ministry in their facility. None of these is an accommodation required by Title VII. 21 Reverend Baz also asserts on appeal that defendants did not show that they could not have accommodated him through a transfer to a non-psychiatric facility. Just one of the several reasons that the defendants offered for not transferring Reverend Baz would have been sufficient. Reverend Neely testified that to transfer Reverend Baz would require a shuffling process involving as many as seven hospitals to create a space at the West Virginia hospital that had been suggested. An employer need not disturb the job preferences of other employees to accommodate an employee's religious observance. Hardison, 432 U.S. at 81, 97 S.Ct. at 2275. The shuffling would also create a more than de minimis administrative cost, not least because such a move would require contravening the V.A. policy of not transferring probationary chaplains or chaplains experiencing difficulties of adjustment. See Waterman deposition at 24-26. In addition, Reverend Cherry saw a risk in assigning Reverend Baz to a hospital at which he would be the only full-time chaplain, without a superior.