In 2016, a Walmart located in Wisconsin offered the position of Assistant Manager at the store to Mr. Ed Hedican, which he accepted. After doing so, Mr. Hedican sent a request in for a religious accommodation to not be scheduled to work on the Sabbath of his faith, the Seventh-Day Adventists, which would have been Saturday, a normal operating day for the company. Instead, he offered to work at any other time during the week, even on a Sunday, but despite this attempt to find a scheduling compromise, his request was denied and rescinded the offer of the position. They instead advised he seek a lower paying hourly job with them as giving an accommodation for this salary position presented an "undue burden" under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Under the Title VII, however, protects employees from discrimination based off of factors including race and religion, to which the latter pertains to Mr. Hedican's case.
The EEOC took on Hedican's issues as a suit against the conglomerate for not reasonably accommodating his religious right to practice and not work on Saturdays. However, according to a case from 1977, Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, a company can refuse accommodations if it presented any inconvenience on their part. Using Hardison, the District Court and 7th Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Walmart, which left EEOC to drop the case and Hedican took it upon himself to file a cert and carry onto the Supreme Court. While waiting for the new Cert request to be granted after attempting, another case decision involving intervention caused the Supreme Court to send back Hedican to the Court of Appeals for a second look following the new decision under Cameron v EMW Women's Surgical Center (2022) that intervention can occur after initial arguments which kept him from continuing his case. As such, the case is ongoing and may potentially see, pending the new decision of the 7th District and the Supreme Court, the Court deciding on whether a private corporation should grant religious accommodations in the case of Mr. Hedican and his other request to revisit the standard governing religious exercise accommodations under Title VII.
Constitutionally, the case for Hedican could be argued given the inclusion of Religion as a factor of discrimination in Title VII and that he attempted to find a compromise in his work schedule that would facially equal the time spent working on Saturday that he would miss. However, previous supreme court cases involving accommodation and religious exemptions for firing or job rescission do not support Hedican. As mentioned previously, Hardison has previously granted private companies the right to refuse exemptions and accommodation, which has significantly impacted the decisions of the Courts in this case. A company like Walmart would earn more money on Saturdays, which are busy given the abundance of 5 day a week schedules at other jobs, and is a nationwide chain that would necessitate significant bureaucratic work from an upper level down to grant exemptions like this all the while Hedican has the freedom to apply to another job elsewhere. Sherbert v Verner (1963), while in regards to unemployment benefits, also involved a Seventh-Day Adventist being fired for refusing to work on the Sabbath despite offering to instead work on Sundays. Personally, however, I support Hedican as Walmart's monetary reasoning does not suppose a burden on their pocketbooks given their multi-billion dollar revenues and that their management system is already complex, not needlessly so, due to its status as the largest private employer in the country.
https://www.becketlaw.org/case/hedican-v-walmart/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/03/two-more-cases-involving-religious-exercise-claims/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/03/justices-issue-quiet-order-list-alito-and-thomas-highlight-religious-liberty-issue/
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/justices-send-walmart-manager-appeal-rights-issue-for-new-look
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/walmart-says-eeoc-trying-to-rewrite-worker-religious-rights-law
4 comments:
I would side with Hedican in this case for two reasons. First, Walmart is a multi-billion dollar industry that will not experience ‘undue burden’ if one manager is absent for one day of the week. Walmart has other less restrictive means such as hiring an additional manager to work the Friday shifts that Hedican can’t. Secondly, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects discrimination based on race and religion, and the treatment against Hedican is a clear form of discrimination. His offer of employment was retracted solely based on his religious practice of the Sabbath. Although Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects ‘undue burden’ against a company, it must also abide by the Constitutional demand for free exercise of religion. I would also like to note disagreement with the ruling in Trans World Airlines v. Hardison for the same reasons. I think the Supreme Court must establish some degree of unison. It can not rule in the opposite way that it did in prior cases that reflect similar arguments, which is why Walmart initially won this case. I think the Supreme Court should reassess its decision in the latter case.
I'm actually going to push back a bit against both Mason and Emily here. While I agree that it may be unreasonable to suggest that this causes an undue burden on a multi-billion dollar company, it is not unreasonable to give the job to someone who better fits the requirements. Discrimination is strangely a normal part of any application process. If a business wants to increase its diversity it may discriminate against certain groups of people in order to achieve that. If this Walmart has multiple people that could fill this position and one is willing to work one more day of the week than the other, that person is a better choice for the job. The religion of their employees isn't a concern of the business. We have seen in several cases that private businesses are allowed to discriminate. I believe this case falls within that category.
While I certainly understand both sides of the argument, I would have to say that I agree with the argument Davis presented above. Overall, Walmart is a business and they have the right to do what they feel is best for the business. As Davis mentioned, if that means hiring someone who has more availability then they should be able to do so. I also think that Hedican should have made his availability clear when applying for and interviewing for the job. That way Walmart could have known what to expect when choosing to hire him.
I agree with the arguments Peyton and Davis presented in previous comments and side with Walmart in this case. While Walmart is a multi-billion-dollar company, they also have thousands of employees, and it didn't make that profit by accommodating the needs of every employee across the country. I agree with Davis that we've seen cases where private businesses are allowed to discriminate and Walmart doesn't have an obligation to work around everyone's schedule, they just have an obligation to fill their stores with employees to help their customers and increase their profits. Although I feel for Hedican because Walmart may not have made a considerable effort to find someone to take the Friday afternoon shifts, they're a private business and don't have to. In response to Emily's point that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects against discrimination based on religion, Walmart didn't care to ask about his religion (which they're not allowed to, that is protected) and they offered him the position. Walmart is a business, and they have a compelling interest in hiring employees that are actually able to show up during busy times to do the jobs that they were hired to do. If Walmart was forced to accept requests for accommodations for their busiest day, I think this would lead to a slippery slope of other kinds of accommodations, and with no way to judge or rank the sincerity or importance of other requests, it would be dangerous for a company as large as Walmart.
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