Name: Supreme Court Sympathetic to Christian Mail Carrier Who Quit Over Sunday Deliveries
Uploaded: 2023-04-19T08:14:57.000Z
Description: The Supreme Court seemed receptive April 18 to the arguments of an evangelical Christian mail carrier who quit the U.S. Postal Service after it refused to accommodate his wish not to work on the Sunday Sabbath.

Sam Wang is a Washington correspondent for NTD News based in Washington, D.C. Sam covers politics on Capitol Hill, and U.S.-China relations. 

Sam Wang

NTD Plus

News

News with integrity, from the U.S. and around the world. Focused reports and analyses that shed light on major issues the world deserves to know. NTD Evening News airs daily at 6 p.m. ET.

NTD Evening News

Citizens React to Communist Cuba in Crisis

Arleen Richards is NTD's legal correspondent based at the network's global headquarters in New York City, where she covers all major legal stories. Arleen holds a Doctor of Law (J.D.).


Arleen Richards

Federal Agencies Announce ‘Summer Surge’ of Law Enforcement into DC Ahead of 250th Anniversary

Christina Corona is a California-based reporter for NTD News. She primarily covers California news, politics, and entertainment.  

Christina Corona

Trump Administration Reports Zero Border Releases

Arian Pasdar is an international correspondent for NTD News based in South America. His reporting focuses on immigration and key events in Latin America.

Arian Pasdar

US to Host First Ever World Cup Final Halftime Show, Featuring Shakira, Madonna

David Lam is a national correspondent based in California and a part-time anchor for "NTD Tonight." Before joining NTD he was a financial analyst.

David Lam

Californians React as Trump Calls for Gas Tax Suspension

Jack Bradley is a Washington correspondent for NTD News based in Washington, D.C. Jack previously anchored "NTD Newsroom" and worked as an assistant producer for the show. 

Jack Bradley

China’s Broken Promises Loom Over New Trade Deals

Chris Bob is a reporter for NTD and a host of "Profiles of Service." He is also a small business owner. Chris graduated from Union College with a concentration in politics and religion in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Chris Bob

House Passes First Fiscal Year 2027 Appropriations Bill

Dave Martin is NTD's Senior Sports Reporter and sports analyst. He also hosts "Data Hub" segments during NTD's special election coverage, "The Nation Decides."

Dave Martin

Cavs, Spurs Can Clinch as NBA Playoffs Resume

Savannah Pointer is a politics reporter for The Epoch Times. She can be reached at savannah.pointer@epochtimes.us

Savannah Hulsey Pointer

Jason Perry is an Army veteran and NTD's National Security Correspondent based at the network's global headquarters in New York City. Jason primarily covers border security, national defense, foreign wars, and veterans' issues.

Jason Perry

Health News

Texas Children's Hospital to Open First-Ever Detransition Clinic Under Deal With DOJ

Citizens Honor Police for Their Service and Sacrifice

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (May 16)

Cary Dunst is the news anchor for NTD Evening News. He is also the co-host of NTD Good Morning.


Cary Dunst

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (May 15)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (May 14)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (May 13)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (May 12)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (May 11)

Don Ma is an anchor and senior business correspondent based at the network's global headquarters in New York City. Don is the anchor and producer of NTD's "Business Matters," which airs weekdays at 4:30 pm ET.

Don Ma

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (May 10)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (May 9)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (May 8)

NTD Evening News Full Broadcast (May 7)

NTD Newsroom comprises teams of reporters, editors, and producers assigned to cover breaking news and other stories.


NTD Newsroom

Fast, compelling, first-hand news from China. China in Focus airs Monday–Friday at 8 p.m. ET.

China in Focus

China Sends Warships to Pacific Drill as Tensions With Japan Rise

Reuters is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages.

Reuters

We present news that is truthful and based on facts, outside of the political fog. Instead of focusing on the negative things happening around us, our mission is to give our viewers a good morning with empathetic and uplifting stories. Our aim is to provide an antidote to negativity by shining a light on the best side of people. We speak to inspiring people who positively impact communities, pursue topics that represent our common human values, and will never miss an opportunity to bring you heartwarming stories.

NTD Good Morning

2 US Embassy Personnel Assigned to Cartel Case Killed in Car Accident

The Associated Press is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. 

The Associated Press

US News

Gunman Kills 8 Children, Including 7 of His Own, in Louisiana Mass Shooting

Flora Hua is a reporter based at NTD's global headquarters in New York City, where she covers China news, U.S.-China relations, and human rights issues. Flora primarily contributes to NTD's "China in Focus."  

Flora Hua

Trump: Seized Iranian Ship May Have ‘A Gift From China’

Joseph Lord is a congressional reporter for The Epoch Times.


Joseph Lord

Aldgra Fredly is a freelance writer covering U.S. and Asia Pacific news for The Epoch Times.

Aldgra Fredly

Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani Hospitalized in Critical Condition: Spokesman

Wildfires Across Georgia and Florida Have Destroyed Nearly 50 Homes and Are Forcing Evacuations

News you can trust from the U.S. and around the world. Critical information and insight. We cover the stories that others don’t. NTD News Today airs Monday–Friday at 11 a.m. ET.

NTD News Today

US Warns of China Hacks via Routers, Smart Devices

Juliet Song is an international correspondent exclusively covering China news for NTD. She primarily contributes to NTD's "China in Focus," covering U.S.-China relations, the Chinese regime's human rights abuses, and domestic unrest inside China.

Juliet Song

2 Americans Among Suspected Communist Rebels Killed in Clashes With Troops, Philippine Officials Say

Ryan Morgan is a reporter for The Epoch Times focusing on military and foreign affairs. He was previously a news writer for NTD. 


Ryan Morgan

Mari Otsu is NTD's White House correspondent based in Washington. 

Mari Otsu

World News

Middle East

Iran

3 US Warships Fend Off Iranian Attacks, Trump Says Ceasefire Still Holds

3 Dead in Suspected Hantavirus Outbreak on Cruise Ship in Atlantic Ocean: WHO

The Supreme Court seemed receptive April 18 to the arguments of an evangelical Christian mail carrier who quit the U.S. Postal Service after it refused to accommodate his wish not to work on the Sunday Sabbath.

Over the opposition of the Biden administration, the court agreed in January to take up the civil rights lawsuit of Gerald Groff, who began working as a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service in 2012.

The hearing of the case, which is of intense interest to faith communities and to a slew of lawmakers who filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the Supreme Court, comes as the court has become increasingly protective of First Amendment-based religious freedoms in recent years.

Some liberal commentators have expressed concern that the court may go too far in the case, possibly giving the religious what they perceive as too much power to dictate workplace policies.

The case is Groff v. DeJoy, court file 22-174. The respondent, Louis DeJoy, is the U.S. postmaster general.

Groff was what is called a rural carrier associate, meaning he filled in for absent career employees.

Groff worked at the Quarryville, Pennsylvania, post office until he transferred to the Holtwood post office in August 2016. The postal service initially tried to accommodate his request not to work on Sundays, but he quit in 2019 after the agency stopped exempting him from Sunday work. He sued, claiming the postal service discriminated against him by refusing to accommodate his religion. The suit went forward under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which was originally passed in 1964, but was amended in 1972 to require employers to provide reasonable accommodation for religious employees.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit turned down Groff’s appeal, finding that exempting him from working on Sundays, as he had asked, would have imposed an undue hardship on the postal service.

Title VII generally prohibits an employer from discriminating against an individual because of that individual’s religion. The law defines “religion” to include “all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee’s or prospective employee’s religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”

But in 1977, the Supreme Court narrowed the application of the religious provision. In Trans World Airlines (TWA) v. Hardison (1977), the court held that an employer suffers an “undue hardship” in accommodating an employee’s religious exercise whenever doing so would require the employer “to bear more than a de minimis cost.”

The members of the Supreme Court spent much of the oral hearing on April 18 discussing the precise meaning of “de minimis,” a legal expression meaning too minor to be meaningful or taken into consideration.

Groff’s attorney, Aaron Streett, told the justices during oral arguments on April 18 that TWA v. Hardison is a bad precedent because it violates the “promise” of Title VII that employees should not be forced to choose between their faith and their job.

This “de minimis test makes a mockery of the English language, and no party truly defends it today,” Streett said, urging the Supreme Court to interpret the phrase undue hardship “according to its plain text to mean significant difficulty or expense.”

The test that the government supports is little better than the test used in Hardison because “it allows employers to deny accommodations far short of any fair meaning of ‘undue hardship,’” the lawyer said.

The government “believes undue hardship arises whenever there is lost efficiency, weekly payment of premium wages, or denial of a co-worker’s shift preference,” so, for example, “a diabetic employee could receive snack breaks … under the [Americans with Disabilities Act] but not prayer breaks under Title VII, for that might cause lost efficiency.”

“An employee could receive weekly leave for pregnancy checkups but not to attend Mass, for that might require denying a co-worker’s shift preference or paying premium wages,” Streett said.

“There’s no reason religious workers should receive lesser protection than those covered by other accommodation statutes,” he said, adding that the court “should establish a textual test for undue hardship.”

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar asked the justices not to entirely discard the Hardison precedent, which she said the courts have been using for decades “when analyzing undue hardship under Title VII.”

A clarification of what it actually means would be helpful, she said.

“A substantial body of case law has developed to guide that context-dependent analysis, and that case law provides meaningful protection to religious observants,” she said.

The other side’s argument “boils down to a claim that Hardison was wrong because it insufficiently protects religious employees,” but such an argument should be directed to the policymakers of Congress, not the courts, Prelogar said.

Groff’s job “specifically required him to work on Sundays,” so letting him take Sundays off “would have violated his co-workers’ contractual rights at the post office,” she said.

His absences “created direct concrete burdens on other carriers who had to stay on their shifts longer to get the mail delivered,” and this interfered with the timely delivery of mail and “actually produced employee retention problems, with one carrier quitting and another carrier transferring and another carrier filing a union grievance.”

“That is an undue hardship under any reasonable standard,” Prelogar said.

Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested to Prelogar that some courts have interpreted the de minimis standard incorrectly.

These courts “have taken this ‘de minimis language and run with it and say anything more than a trifling … will get the employer out of any concerns here, and that's wrong and we all agree that's wrong—why can’t we just say that and be done with it and be silent as to the rest of it?”

Justice Elena Kagan asked the top government lawyer if she was saying some cases “require an accommodation.” Prelogar answered in the affirmative.

Kagan noted that there was some common ground between the two sides even though they may disagree on “which cases require an accommodation.”

“So I’m happy that we are all kumbaya-ing together,” the justice quipped.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett suggested to Prelogar that the case could be returned to the lower courts which could be instructed that “to be clear, de minimis doesn't mean trifling costs.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Prelogar how the Supreme Court could deal with this case “without destabilizing the law.”

The solicitor general said the court could “say that Hardison is an interpretation of undue hardship.”

“To the extent any courts out there are reading this literally to mean de minimis means you never have to accommodate, that is wrong, that is inconsistent with the current state of the law, and the Court makes clear that's not what Hardison meant,” she said.

To preserve stability, the court needs “to make clear that you don’t need to redo all of the work that’s been done for five decades under the Hardison standard as properly understood,” Prelogar said.

In his rebuttal, Streett said the government “has not given us any reason why religious employees should have less accommodation than all of those other individuals protected under the other statutes that share the same reasonable accommodation and undue hardship framework.”

The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the case by June or July.

<em>From <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-sympathetic-to-christian-mail-carrier-who-quit-over-sunday-deliveries_5199810.html">The Epoch Times</a></em>

Videos

supreme court

04_Top Stories

Latest Clips

U.S. Postal Service

Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist.

Matthew Vadum

Latest and breaking news, documentaries, movies, and lifestyle content on NTD+.
 
Empower your knowledge and elevate your spirit with NTD+, your go-to destination for truthful news, insightful documentaries, and captivating lifestyle content that enriches your life.