The Supreme Court agreed late on Jan. 13 to take up the civil rights lawsuit of an evangelical Christian postal worker in Pennsylvania who quit the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) after it refused to accommodate his wish to not work on the Sunday Sabbath.
The granting of the petition in Groff v. DeJoy, court file 22-174, over the opposition of the Biden administration, comes as the high court has become increasingly protective of First Amendment-based religious protections in recent years.
The justices gave no reason for their decision. No justices dissented from the ruling.
Gerald Groff began working as a mail carrier for the USPS in 2012. He was what’s called a rural carrier associate, meaning that he filled in for absent career employees.
Groff is represented by First Liberty Institute, Baker Botts LLP, the Church State Council, and the Independence Law Center.
“It is unlawful for employers to discriminate against employees on the basis of religion,” Kelly Shackelford, president, CEO, and chief counsel for First Liberty Institute, said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times.
“It’s time for the Supreme Court to reconsider a decades-old case that favors corporations and the government over the religious rights of employees.”
Shackelford didn’t elaborate on the earlier precedent.
“We are simply asking the Supreme Court to apply the law as written and require employers to grant meaningful religious accommodations to people of faith,” Attorney Aaron Streett of Baker Botts said.
Lead trial counsel Alan Reinach of the Church State Council said: “Workers have suffered too long with the Supreme Court’s interpretation that disrespects the rights of those with sincere faith commitments to a workplace accommodation. It’s long past time for the Supreme Court to protect workers from religious discrimination.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit turned down Groff’s appeal last year, finding that exempting him from Sunday work would have imposed an undue hardship on the postal service.
The court of appeals “correctly applied” legal precedent when it found that Groff’s request to skip Sunday work imposed hardship on his co-workers, “disrupted the workplace and workflow, and diminished employee morale,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a brief, quoting the appeals court.
This harmed the USPS because it “made timely delivery more difficult,” she said.
The attorneys general of 17 states signed onto a friend-of-the-court brief on Sept. 26, 2022, asking the Supreme Court to hear the case.
“It’s a fundamental right of every citizen to freely exercise their religious freedom,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, at the time.
“Many spend most of their time at work and people should not be expected to choose between their jobs and their faith. That’s absurd. No one should be forced to sacrifice their dedication to their religion in order to keep a job.”
Morrisey and the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia filed the brief.
Federal lawmakers filed their own friend-of-the-court brief.
Among the lawmakers were Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), along with Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), and Joe Wilson (R-S.C.).
Department of Justice officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch times for comment.
