Over the past several years, we have reported on multiple federal court lawsuits filed by former employees who alleged that their employers' failure to grant exemptions from COVID-19 vaccination mandates constitutes religious discrimination under Title VII. Many of these decisions discussed issues such as whether the employee held sincere religious beliefs, or whether the alternative accommodations offered by the employer satisfied these religious objections. Last week, the Ninth Circuit directly addressed the legal issue at the heart of these lawsuits: Did allowing unvaccinated employees to continue to work during the pandemic create an undue hardship for healthcare employers?

In Williams v. Legacy Health, the employer declined religious exemption requests from employees who worked in a clinical setting. The employer based its decisions on risk of infection to vulnerable patient populations, as well as coworkers who were needed to provide patient care services. The district court dismissed the claims on the basis that granting the requested exemptions would have jeopardized the employer’s ability to provide safe and effective healthcare services.

The Ninth Circuit affirmed this decision, concluding that the employer had met its burden of demonstrating an undue hardship resulting from the requested accommodations. The court analyzed this question using the revised standard for Title VII religious discrimination claims set forth in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Groff v. DeJoy decision. The Ninth Circuit noted that under that decision, an undue hardship does not need to be financial in nature.

In this case, the unvaccinated workers posed three potential risks to the employer: the chance that they would themselves become infected and unable to perform services; the potential for infecting coworkers, resulting in staffing issues; and the risk of infecting vulnerable patients. Taken together, these risks satisfied the undue hardship burden. The Ninth Circuit noted that reasonably foreseeable risks are sufficient to meet this standard, and that the employer does not have to wait until it incurs such effects to deny the accommodation request.

Although this reasoning may not be followed by other appellate circuits, the decision provides employers with guidance for structuring and defending decisions not to grant religious accommodation requests under the Groff legal standard. While the COVID-19 litigation may be dying down, these principles could apply to future types of religious accommodation issues.

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