The Employers’ Loss Is the Lawyers’ Gain
A 9-0 religious-liberty ruling by the Supreme Court will subject businesses to long and expensive litigation. July 3, 2023 1:26 pm ET The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images In most contexts, the Supreme Court’s conservative wing can be expected to urge a narrow construction of employment-discrimination laws because they infringe on the prerogatives of employers. These libertarian leanings fell to the wayside in the court’s unanimous decision heightening the burden an employer must meet to justify a failure to accommodate its employee’s religious practice (“A 9-0 Victory for Religious Rights,” Review & Outlook, June 30). Lower courts ruled for decades that employers were required to assume no more than “de minimis costs” to satisfy Title VII’s duty to accommodate. Congress never acted to alter that rule, but today the court di
The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington.
Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
In most contexts, the Supreme Court’s conservative wing can be expected to urge a narrow construction of employment-discrimination laws because they infringe on the prerogatives of employers. These libertarian leanings fell to the wayside in the court’s unanimous decision heightening the burden an employer must meet to justify a failure to accommodate its employee’s religious practice (“A 9-0 Victory for Religious Rights,” Review & Outlook, June 30).
Lower courts ruled for decades that employers were required to assume no more than “de minimis costs” to satisfy Title VII’s duty to accommodate. Congress never acted to alter that rule, but today the court did, deciding that an employer may deny a requested accommodation only where the employer would incur “substantial costs” by granting it.
Your editorial cheers the court’s broadening of Title VII, which will result in increased liability for employers and subject them to exceedingly long and expensive litigation over when the costs of a requested accommodation become “substantial.” Surely the lawyers are cheering today’s decision as well.
Kenneth A. Margolis
Chappaqua, N.Y.
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