Constructive Discharge

Toy Company Memo To:CEO From:Ken Dilger CC: Date:1/22/2012 Re:Employee Lawsuit In 1964 Congress passed a Civil Rights law that outlawed major forms for discrimination against African Americans and women. One of the major features of this law was Title VII which prohibits discrimination by employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of l964 prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals because of their religion in hiring, firing, and other terms and conditions of employment. The basics of Title VII are that employers may not treat employees more or less favorably because of their religion and employees cannot be required to participate or refrain from participating in a religious activity as a condition of employment. In Title VII, employers must reasonably accommodate its employee’s religious beliefs and practices unless doing so would create an undue hardship on the employer. A reasonable accommodation is one that eliminates the employee’s conflict between his religious practices and work requirements and that does not cause an undue hardship for the employer (Rel, 2011). These accommodations range from the employee needing a day for their Holy Sabbath day, wanting to wear religious garb to work or having flexible work schedules to accommodate religious Holidays. When an employee asks for an accommodation the employer may not simply refuse to do so. If the request is not in best interest of the company because it would result in an undue hardship, the employer must prove the undue hardship that the company would incur. An undue hardship to the company would include anything other than minimal cost to accommodate the religious practice by the employee. Company Response My recommendation on how to respond is that it was never our intent to create a workplace environment so intolerable that our employees would quit. If the employee thought that the change in schedule was so intolerable why didn’t they file a complaint with their manager? Our records show that there was never a verbal or a written complaint with anyone in management. We can also state the fact that no reasonable person would quit their job over a work schedule that allows them to pick which 4 days of the work week can work. This schedule should actually help them avoid a conflict with working on a religious holiday throughout the year. If the employee does not to drop the lawsuit, there are past precedents showing that their lawsuit, based on constructive discharge, will be very hard for them to win. An employee must prove, prima facia, that they have had their rights violated under the religious accommodation rules of Title VII. They must show that they had a bona fide religious belief that conflicts with an employment requirement, that their employer was made aware of the conflict and that they were subjected to an adverse action not complying with the employment requirement. In this lawsuit the employee did none of the three things mentioned above. Proving a constructive discharge claim will be very hard for the employee to do. There are legal precedents showing that like court case Tepper vs Potter (2007) who have failed to show prima facie in their lawsuits when they claim constructive discharge over their religious holiday suits. C 1 LEGAL REFERENCE #1: In Cosme v Henderson, the employee asked for a Monday thru Friday work schedule for his mail route and it was granted by his boss. When the schedule changed to add Saturdays to his mail route, his boss told him not to change his schedule due to his religious beliefs. The employee did change his schedule to work on Saturday and then filed a constructive discharge claim against the company. The courts ruled in favor of the employer due to their reasonable efforts to accommodate the employee. This supports my recommendation that since the employee never filed a complaint then there was no way for us to accommodate a religious belief conflict. 2: In Brenner v Diagnostic Center Hospital, Mr. Brenner, an Orthodox Jew, was allowed to switch his work shifts with other employees to accommodate his Jewish Holiday schedule. Later that year Brener failed to exchange work shifts and did not appear for work when he was required to. He later resigned sighting constructive discharge due to the affect the company would not accommodate his Jewish Holiday schedule. The courts ruled in favor of the Defendant based on their effort t o accommodate his schedule. The case supports my statement that the company’s new work schedule is flexible enough to allow all employees to meet their religious holiday schedule. #3: In Goldmeier v AllState INS, the Goldmeier’s who are Orthodox Jews could not work on Saturdays during the winter months when AllState changed their corporate policy on their work schedule. AllState did not allow an exception when the Goldmeiers asked for one due to the new work schedule. When the Goldmeiers informed AllState about the constructive discharge lawsuit, AllState then allowed them to work on Sunday to make up for their religious conflict on Saturday. The court ruled in favor of AllState on the facts that the employee did not prove prima facia in their lawsuit and that AllState did not intend to create a hostile work environment when changing the work schedule. This supports my recommendation that since the employee did not file a complaint with upper management that they have no claim of constructive discharge. The case also supports my statement that we did not intend to create a hostile environment to make employees quit but rather to accommodate production. C2 LEGAL RECOMMENDATION My first recommendation to avoid lawsuits in the future is to implement a formal complaint system for the employees to use to communicate to management about workplace conditions that they think are unfair. This will help the company correct any problems before they turn into lawsuits. Another recommendation that I would make is not to use a change in workplace environment or schedule to get employees to resign rather than having to fire them. Doing this can lead to a bad workplace environment for management employees who are in place to enforce this rule. My last recommendation is to have an exit interview with anyone leaving the company. This will allow the employee to give insight on why they are leaving and to make sure there are no ill will towards the company. . References Brener v Diagnostic Center Hospital, 671 F. 2d 141, (5th Cir, 1982) Cosme v Henderson, 287, F. 3d 152, 158 (2d Cir, 2002) Goldmeier v AllState Insurance Company, 337, F. 3d 629 (6th Cir, 2003) Religious Accommodation in the Workplace: Your Rights and Obligations, Anti-Defamation League, New York, New York, (2011). Constructive Discharge Constructive Discharge occurs when an employee’s working conditions are considered to be so bad due to a policy or enforcement of that policy that the employee feels compelled to resign from the employer. This Constructive Discharge claim was filed under the section of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after a work schedule policy change took place. The employee filed this claim post-resignation. This employee has claimed that the change is religious discrimination due to requiring that he work on a religious holy day. To make note to the case, please keep in mind that this employee resigned after the policy took effect at the beginning of the year. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 it is prohibited for any employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. This is in regards to any current or former employee. The term â€Å"religion† includes all religious observances, practices, and beliefs. For this case to be proven as religious discrimination under Title VII, the employee must show that he: (1) holds a sincere religious belief that conflicts with an employment requirement; (2) has informed the employer about the conflict; and (3) has been discharged, disciplined or subjected to discriminatory treatment for failing to comply with the conflicting employment requirement. Title VII states that it is the employer’s obligation to reasonably accommodate requests by staff members to practice their sincerely held religious beliefs and observances. For this case, â€Å"Reasonably means that accommodating these practices would not cause hardship or conflict with normal business operations.