Tag: De Minimis

SCOTUS Increases Burden on Employers to Deny Religious Accommodations


Garrett P. Buttrey ●

On June 29, 2023, the United States Supreme Court (“Court”) issued a unanimous opinion in Groff v. DeJoy, finding that the employer-friendly de minimis standard for determining whether an employer would suffer an undue hardship by granting a religious accommodation to an employee is incompatible with the text of Title VII, and that federal law requires employers to instead show that such an accommodation would impose “substantial additional costs” on the employer.

After the United States Postal Service (“USPS”) began delivering packages for Amazon on Sundays in 2013, Gerald Groff, a former mail carrier with the USPS, requested a religious accommodation, claiming that according to his Evangelical Christian faith, Sundays were to be devoted to worship and rest, and that delivering packages on Sundays would violate his religious convictions. The USPS, however, continued to schedule him for Sunday shifts and, when he continued to refuse to work on Sundays, the USPS redistributed those shifts to other USPS staff and issued Groff progressive discipline for his refusals to work. Eventually, Groff resigned his position and sued the USPS, claiming that it could have accommodated his religious practice without an undue hardship on the conduct of its business.

Continue reading “SCOTUS Increases Burden on Employers to Deny Religious Accommodations”

“De Minimis” May Be Down, but It’s Not Out—And What Does It Mean for Employer Rounding Policies in California?

Laura Reathaford, Caroline Powell Donelan, and Caitlin I. Sanders

On July 26, 2018, the California Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in Troester v. Starbucks Corp., __ P.3d __ (2018). In the days that have followed, legal headlines have lamented the presumed “death” of the de minimis doctrine. But is Troester really that simple? And what does it mean for employer rounding policies?

The issue in Troester was whether the federal Fair Labor Standards Act’s (“FLSA”) de minimis doctrine applies to claims for unpaid wages under certain provisions of the California Labor Code. For the better half of the past century, the de minimis doctrine has been applied in the federal wage and hour context to excuse payment of wages under the FLSA for insubstantial or insignificant periods of time. Continue reading ““De Minimis” May Be Down, but It’s Not Out—And What Does It Mean for Employer Rounding Policies in California?”

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