Summary
The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Legacy Health in a Title VII and Washington state-law action brought by employees denied religious exemptions from a COVID-19 vaccination policy. Applying Groff v. DeJoy and Petersen v. Snohomish Regional Fire & Rescue, the court held that Legacy demonstrated a realistic and substantial undue hardship based on health, safety, staffing, and operational risks in its healthcare business. The court also held that an undue-hardship defense does not require prior individualized accommodation efforts where no reasonable accommodation could avoid the hardship.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Legacy established that accommodating the employees' religious objections to its COVID-19 vaccination policy would impose an undue hardship under Title VII and corresponding Washington law.
- Whether an employer must make good-faith or individualized accommodation efforts before asserting undue hardship as a defense.
- Whether Legacy had to consider all reasonable accommodation alternatives and whether its reliance on scientific and COVID-19 data available when it made its decisions was sufficient.
Holdings
- Title VII's undue-hardship defense is satisfied when the burden of a proposed religious accommodation is substantial in the overall context of the employer's business. The burden may include health and safety costs and operational burdens, and a realistic, nonhypothetical risk of such hardship is sufficient. Legacy established undue hardship because exempting close-contact healthcare workers from vaccination during the Delta variant period created realistic risks of employee absences, transmission to staff, and transmission to medically vulnerable patients.
- An employer need not first make good-faith or individualized accommodation efforts before asserting undue hardship if it can show that any accommodation would impose undue hardship.
- An employer must assess whether any and all reasonable accommodations would impose undue hardship; it may not selectively assess only one possible accommodation. Legacy satisfied that requirement because its undisputed evidence showed that no effective alternative to vaccination existed for the employees' close-contact healthcare work.
Key quotations
“Rather, “‘undue hardship’ is shown when a burden is substantial in the overall context of an employer’s business.”” (8)
“A “risk of undue hardship” will suffice—provided it is “realistic” and “not ‘merely conceivable or hypothetical.’”” (9)
“The undisputed evidence demonstrates that any method of accommodating Employees’ objections to vaccination—while maintaining their conditions of employment—would have resulted in undue hardship to Legacy.” (13)
Factual background
Legacy Health operates eight hospitals in Washington and Oregon and adopted a COVID-19 vaccination policy in August 2021 as the Delta variant emerged. The plaintiffs, whose jobs required close contact with patients or staff, sought religious exemptions; Legacy denied the requests, placed them on administrative leave, and terminated all except Toby Higa, who later received the vaccine and returned to work. Legacy relied on evidence that vaccination reduced transmission and infection risks, that unvaccinated frontline workers posed risks to staff and patients, and that masking, personal protective equipment, and testing were not effective substitutes.
Procedural history
The employees filed separate suits alleging religious discrimination under Title VII and Washington state law, and the district court consolidated the actions. After discovery, the district court granted Legacy summary judgment, assuming the employees had established a prima facie case but concluding that Legacy proved undue hardship and that the employees offered no relevant evidence to dispute that showing. The Ninth Circuit affirmed.