We’ve reported earlier on the case of EEOC v. Star Trucking, in which two Muslim employees alleged that their employer, a trucking firm, was obliged under federal religious-discrimination law to accommodate their wish not to haul beer. The case had gotten less press attention than the later, similar case of a flight attendant who asserts religious scruples against serving alcoholic beverages to passengers. Now an Illinois federal jury has agreed with the EEOC and awarded the workers $240,000. [EEOC press release (updated to replace earlier paywalled link)]
More: Eugene Volokh noting that Title VII as long enforced requires employers to accommodate employees’ religiously-based requests when the burdens of doing so are small, and that Star Transport — which has since reportedly gone out of business — did not put forth a showing otherwise in this case.
31 Comments
The reasoning would seem to support pharmacy employees and owners who do not want to provide birth control. Are they covered by a different law, or is EEOC simply following orders not to offend a key Democratic constituency?
Protecting employees of private employers who refuse to serve customers sounds more like “establishing” their religion at the expense of others than like protecting their “free exercise” from government interference.
EEOC guidance lists “a Christian pharmacy employee [who] needs to be excused from filling birth control prescriptions” as an example of a commonly requested Title VII accommodation, and by implication it supports such accommodation when of “minimal” cost or disruption to the employer. As in the Muslim-trucking case, its definition of that term may vary widely from the employer’s or from yours or mine.
http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/wysk/workplace_religious_accommodation.cfm
Title VII does not create rights for business owners, so if a pharmacy’s owners wish to escape some government regulation which would otherwise require them to handle contraception, they must rely on a different source of legal authority, such as a RFRA or legislated exemption.
More on these pharmacy-employee cases, which have been repeatedly litigated, in this undated law firm advisory:
http://www.gouldratner.com/Assets/News/DNM-Refusing%20to%20Fill%20Birth%20Control%20Prescriptions.pdf
I can’t help but note how contrary this verdict is to my own personal experience.
In college, my Muslim friend Rasheed stored my beer in his fridge. He was the ideal person to do so, since he couldn’t drink it himself.
Many Muslims have no problem handling beer, they just can’t consume it.
My mother is a Christian Scientist who can’t drink alcohol or smoke, but that doesn’t stop her from indirectly owning stock in tobacco and liquor companies.
And I know very religious christians who support the right to have an abortion. So, those who are anti-abortion are contrary to my own personal experience.
The point is, under the law (as you must know, Mr. Bader), it is not the general belief that is at issue, but the individual’s specific belief.
How is this functionally any different from Christian bakeries who refuse to make cakes for gay weddings?
The bakery cases were business owner vs customer where this case was employee vs employer.
The bakery cases may well have come out differently if it was a single employee at a larger bakery who wanted a religious exception from working on cakes for gay weddings and the bakery had other employees willing to do the work.
In short, the bakery cases involved a business refusing to do business with a particular company. In this case, the trucking company is willing to haul beer and can still haul beer, they just have to switch around which drivers are hauling which loads.
MattS,
You have somewhat hit on what I think is a major flaw in the idea of “accommodations.”
1) Assume for a moment that the bakery is a shop owned by a husband and wife who both have religious objections to something. The government will come in and demand that the owners – the only employees – still make the cake.
2) Add a third person in the mix. As you state, that person can claim a religious accommodation which shifts the burden back to owners who also have a religious objection and will have to make the cake.
To me that says that the employee(s) have more rights than owners when it comes to religious objections. In addition, it seems that the only way that a shop owners can be accommodated is if they hire more people and hope that one will make the cake. (They have to hope because they cannot ask any questions on a person’s religious beliefs in a job interview.) So owners of small bakeries do not have the same rights as large bakeries to say nothing that they do not have the same fundamental rights as their employees.
I see cases like this as treating people differently given the same set of circumstances. I realize that there is a theory of owning a business is some sort of legal “privilege,” but I am against the idea that in order to make a living a person is forced to give up their rights.
gitarcarver,
“I see cases like this as treating people differently given the same set of circumstances. I realize that there is a theory of owning a business is some sort of legal “privilege,” but I am against the idea that in order to make a living a person is forced to give up their rights.”
I mostly agree with you on the larger principles. However, the circumstances are not the same. In point of fact the two situations don’t even involve the same laws.
1. has the owners violating public accommodations laws.
2. Yields exactly the same answer as one under public discrimination law but adds an entirely new circumstance involving employment discrimination laws.
Matt,
I believe that the cases do involve the same basis of laws. In one case the government has passed a law saying that the employer cannot force an employee to act against their moral conscience.
In the same breath and under the same Civil Rights Laws, the government has said “we can force an employer / owner to act against their moral conscience.”
As far as I am aware, there is no right to demand a person provide a service to another. In some cases – specifically in cases where something is created by someone just for one occasion – why should anyone be forced into a contract or servitude? Doesn’t that person have rights as well? Why do we believe that forcing people to act against their morals is a good thing in all cases?
To be clear, I am not talking about a guy who walks up to a lunch counter and orders a burger. We are talking about those cases where there is an act of creation – an expression from the owner / creator that is specific to that one occasion.
I work in the graphics field. I firmly believe that I should have the right to say “no” to creating a poster or flyer advertising a rally for the “National White Supremacy Party” or for the “”Black Supremacy Party.” I should have the right to not be forced to create brochures for abortions if I am pro life. If I am pro-choice, I should have the right to turn down a job from an pro-life group.
When a person walks into a bakery and wants a cake with certain colors, layers, frosting, decorations, etc, I should have the right to say “no” in the creation of that cake if the event is against my moral conscience.
Employees do not “have more right than owners.” They have the same right.
If a bake shop has many employees and one owner, the owner can assign baking cakes for purposes he/she opposes to another employee, just like the owner can excuse an employee from the baking.
The rule is a function of the size of the business, not the fact that one is an employee or an owner.
I do wonder where it ends. Say a privately owned for profit hospital offers surgical procedures, but refuses to allow physicians to perform abortions. If there were a state law requiring entities offering general surgical procedures to allow abortions… I know, it could not happen.
Allan,
We all agree that the employee can refuse to bake the cake on moral grounds. The law requires that the owner make an accommodation for the employee because the law recognizes the religious rights and freedoms of the employee.
On the other hand, the owner cannot refuse to bake or cause the cake to be baked on moral grounds.
If there is but one owner / worker, that owner has less rights than an employee. I agree that to some extent this is based on the size of the company, but are we really willing to say that a person’s right to not act against their moral conscience is dependent on the size of the company in which they work?
In the case of Star Trucking (employer versus employee) the authors of Title VII justify the law based on the burden to the employer being small. I would argue that in the case of the bakery (business versus customer) the business owners religious-based request is a small burden to the customer, therefore the bakery should be accommodated.
Just returned from having spent a week and a half in southeast Asia. Service staff on aircraft, in hotels, and restaurants, some of whom were certainly Muslim, served me alcohol. They seemed to have no problem doing that. If my memory serves, Islam forbids drinking alcohol. That is a clear step beyond hauling or serving it.
1. US courts when considering religious accommodations claims, whether from job duties under employment discrimination law or from a generally applicable law under the RFRA, are prohibited from determining if the claimed belief is actually part of the dogma of any organized religion. The claimed belief can be completely personal and one off.
2. Asian airlines don’t operate under US employment discrimination laws, so they are completely free to fire any employee who refuses to serve alcohol even if the refusal is for religious reasons.
As a tourist in Tennessee I tried to buy a locally-made whiskey for my husband. In 3 different stores the Muslim employees were unable to answer my questions about the product because they didn’t drink. I’m talking Nashville and Murfreesboro. Religious accommodation litigation and its fallout is going to spread like syrup on hotcakes.
Anyone else find it interesting that the company admitted liability?
Look. This appears to be a relatively large company with a relatively large fleet of trucks. It would have taken little effort and have cost little money to make the accommodation. That is why they lost. Had this been a small company with a small fleet, I don’t think there would have been liability. Had this been a beer distributor, I don’t think there would have been any liability.
Frankly, I am shocked that anyone is shocked that the company is liable. Even the company admitted it was liable under the current law. Perhaps you can be outraged by the amount of damages awarded, but you have not seen the evidence to support the verdict. Perhaps you can be outraged by the law. Work to change it.
“Anyone else find it interesting that the company admitted liability?”
Yes, according to this, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/23/240000-jury-award-to-muslim-truck-drivers-who-were-fired-for-refusing-to-transport-alcohol/ , they only thing the company contested at trial was punitive damages.
It appears that the trucking company in this case went out of business and there is doubt as to whether the judgement can be collected.
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20151022/NEWS/151029737
So as I understand it, if a Muslim owned a truck and worked as in independent trucker he could be forced by law to haul a load of beer over his religious objection.
But if that same Muslim worked for a company with ten trucks the company is forced by law to accommodate his objection.
This doesn’t seem to me to fit very well within the concept justice.
“This doesn’t seem to me to fit very well within the concept justice.”
That’s because the two different situations are covered by different laws, written at different times and authored by different sets of lobbyists and congressmen.
Not one member of either set of bill authors gave so much as a moments thought to what was already in the law or whether they were setting up a redundancy, or a catch 22, or a contradiction with existing law.
That kind of situation exists all over our current laws at all levels, federal, state, and local.
This is a direct result of the creation of full time “professional” legislatures. The members of every law making body think that they have to constantly create new laws to justify their paychecks, never mind the fact that we already have too many laws.
Eh, but if you have non-professional legislatures, I very much doubt you’d solve the problem of redundant/inconsistent laws. Then you just exacerbate the problem of the legislature not knowing what the current law IS.
That’s because the two different situations are covered by different laws, written at different times and authored by different sets of lobbyists and congressmen.
This is not the first time you have put this forth. The requirement to sell to protected classes is part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which was passed in December 1964.
Title VII, which is the accommodations for workers was passed 9 months later and is part of the Civil Rights Act.
It is hard for me to conceive that the House and Senate had that great of a turnover in the 1964 elections. Furthermore, it is hard to say that 9 months was a “different time” as compared to say, the time between 1964 and now.
It is just really difficult for me to buy into the idea of what you are saying in order to justify the government forcing people to be treated differently in the workplace.
“It is just really difficult for me to buy into the idea of what you are saying in order to justify the government forcing people to be treated differently in the workplace.”
If you think I am trying to justify it, you have very badly misunderstood my comments. I am just describing how we got here.
“It is hard for me to conceive that the House and Senate had that great of a turnover in the 1964 elections.”
Turn over is not necessary. Not every member of the either house is involved in writing every bill. In point of fact, different sections of a single act can be written by different groups actively working at cross purposes.
Do you have any evidence that the groups that wrote those two different sections were exactly the same down to the last member? To me, that actually seems rather unlikely.
Many legislators seem to vote without ever reading what they are voting on. Unless the authors of Title 7 were exactly the same people who wrote the section on public accommodations, assuming that the authors of title 7 had any idea what was in the section on public accommodations seems to me to be a bit of a stretch.
“Furthermore, it is hard to say that 9 months was a “different time” as compared to say, the time between 1964 and now.”
In politics anything that crosses an election boundary might as well be forever. Politicians will change their stances based on changes in public opinion.
I am sorry MattS, but when you dismiss objections by saying “[t]hat’s because the two different situations are covered by different laws, written at different times and authored by different sets of lobbyists and congressmen.” I do see that as an attempt to justify the disparity of the results in similar, if not identical situations.
In each case you have a protected class that demands a cake. The government does not allow the owner to “force” an employee to bake a cake over their moral objections. The government then turns around and forces the owner to bake that same cake over the same moral objections. The only difference in the government’s actions is the person. That doesn’t qualify to me for being “different situations.” (See Stephen Macklin’s post below for a further breakdown of the issue.)
Frankly, I think you are grasping when you say that no one read the bill (it is somewhat short). Furthermore, the author of Article VII was one of the authors of the Civil Rights Bill.
I am just not buying what you are laying down.
” I do see that as an attempt to justify the disparity of the results in similar, if not identical situations.”
No, it’s not an attempt to justify the disparity, just an attempt to explain why the disparity exists.
Buy it or not as you will.
“That’s because the two different situations are covered by different laws, written at different times and authored by different sets of lobbyists and congressmen.”
Totally irrelevant to the question I posed and generally.
The question I posed dealt with the same individual, with same religious beliefs, and the same religious objection to certain activities. In the case where the individual is working for someone else the law requires the objection be accommodated and penalizes and employer for not doing so. In the case where the individual is working for themselves there is no accommodation for their religious objection and in fact they face fines for failing to comply.
Why is one religious objection valid under law and another not? The particular mechanism or legislators who produced one law vs the other is a technicality and does not explain how both sides of the contradiction can be claimed to represent justice.
Stephen,
You are coming from a position where you think the law is/should be consistent and/or just. While I used to believe that to, and would love to see the law be like that, I realized more than a decade ago that neither of those things is achievable in the real world.
The law as it exists today is largely inconsistent, self contradictory and unjust. Wake up and learn to deal with it.
“Why is one religious objection valid under law and another not?”
Because that’s the way the law was written. I’m sorry, but no matter how much you want it, there is no better answer.
“The particular mechanism or legislators who produced one law vs the other is a technicality and does not explain how both sides of the contradiction can be claimed to represent justice.”
It is what it is, I never claimed it represents justice.
“The law as it exists today is largely inconsistent, self contradictory and unjust.”
That is the problem I was getting to and the point I was trying to make.
“Wake up and learn to deal with it.” By which you seem to mean bend over and accept the irrational and the unjust. No thanks.
“By which you seem to mean bend over and accept the irrational and the unjust. No thanks.”
I used to be confident that the system could be fixed from within. But it is just too corrupt, too broken.
Every year that passes, what little hope I have left for fixing the system short of violent revolution/civil war grows ever weaker.
On the other side, it seems that things will have to get a lot worse before there is any hope for a successful revolution.
“Eh, but if you have non-professional legislatures, I very much doubt you’d solve the problem of redundant/inconsistent laws.”
1.If they have regular jobs on top of being legislators then they have more in common with the rest of us.
2. By moving legislatures back to part time, and reducing the pay to below levels at which it can be a career, you reduce the constant drive to add new laws on top of the existing laws.