Opinion ID: 152022
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: DISCUSSION The Majority Applied the Wrong Legal Standard

Text: The majority's holding that [e]ven assuming khimars present only a small threat of the asserted dangers, they do present a threat which is something that GEO is entitled to attempt to prevent, Maj. Op. at 274, represents an unexplained shift from our established jurisprudence. The majority's approach allows an employer facing an asserted safety concern freely to discriminate on the basis of religion by merely inventing a post-hoc safety rationale for its refusal to accommodate its employees' religious practices. An employer cannot evade liability for religious discrimination by merely asserting that it has a legitimate business interest, no matter how important, for refusing to accommodate an employee's religious practice. Rather, the burden is on the employer to show that accommodating the employee's religious practice would impose more than a de minimis cost on the employer. Webb, 562 F.3d at 260. As we said in Webb, that cost may be an a noneconomic cost, such as creating a safety risk. Id. However, the majority has failed even to perform the necessary inquiry into whether making a religious exception from the general headgear ban to accommodate khimars would, in fact, impose such an undue hardship on GEO. The majority's approach creates an exception to the normal burden-shifting rule, which is an established part of our Title VII analysis when safety is the employer's asserted rationale. The majority acknowledges that the District Court did not made any finding or reach any conclusion about the existence of an undue hardship. Maj. Op. at 274. By the majority's own admission, this is also a close case. Id. at 275. But the majority concludes nonetheless that [e]ven assuming khimars present only a small threat of the asserted dangers, they do present a threat which is something that GEO is entitled to attempt to prevent. Id. at 274. The majority thereby effectively exempts GEO from Title VII's requirement that an employer must prove that its hardship is more than de minimis; instead, it concludes that this requirement is met merely because GEO has asserted that its hardship is safety. The majority, in effect, establishes a per se rule that when an employer asserts that its rationale for denying a religious accommodation is safety, the employer need not adduce any evidence to prove the existence of, let alone the magnitude of, the burden it would suffer by accommodating the religious practice. This is error, especially in light of plaintiffs' evidence to the contrary. I agree with the majority that `safety is undoubtedly an interest of the greatest importance.' Webb, 562 F.3d at 262 (quoting Fraternal Order of Police Newark Lodge No. 12 v. City of Newark, 170 F.3d 359 (3d Cir.1999)). Certainly, Title VII does not require that safety be subordinated to the religious beliefs of an employee. Draper v. U.S. Pipe & Foundry Co., 527 F.2d 515, 521 (6th Cir.1975). The importance of the employer's interest, however, does not ipso facto relieve the employer of its burden of proof. It is established law in this Circuit that `[t]he magnitude as well as the fact of hardship must be determined by the examination of the facts of each case.' Protos v. Volkswagen of Am., Inc., 797 F.2d 129, 134 (3d Cir.1986) (quoting Tooley v. Martin-Marietta Corp., 648 F.2d 1239, 1243 (9th Cir. 1981)). On this record, a reasonable jury could easily find that GEO has proven neither the fact nor magnitude of its asserted hardship.