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First of all, you can't trot out stuff like "I have the power of common sense" while complaining about snide comments. As for due warning, they were informed o

First of all, you can't trot out stuff like "I have the power of common sense" while complaining about snide comments. As for due warning, they were informed of the religious observance at the time (and before Easter Sunday), and proceeded to straight up make policy on the spot that invalidated it and future religious celebrations. I asked for your qualifications not to be hostile but because legal matters are often - for better and worse - more nuanced than most people's intuition, and I don't think you have adequately addressed either the legal specifics of what constitutes adequate notice, examined Yelp's response to the situation, or how any of this might look to a jury.

jhall1468 8y ago
> First of all, you can't trot out stuff like "I have the power of common sense" while complaining about snide comments Tit for tat. > As for due warning, they were informed of the religious observance at the time (and before Easter Sunday), and proceeded to straight up make policy on the spot that invalidated it and future religious celebrations. Yes, the the day before Easter, which he also took off as apparently Easter weekend is a holiday, not just the day. > I asked for your qualifications not to be hostile but because legal matters are often - for better and worse - more nuanced than most people's intuition, and I don't think you have adequately addressed either the legal specifics of what constitutes adequate notice, examined Yelp's response to the situation, or how any of this might look to a jury. You asked because it functioned as an ad hominem. You're part of this conversation, and haven't suggested you have any legal qualifications, which we can safely assume it means you don't. I don't need to address the legal specifics of what constitutes adequate notice, because I'm fairly confident "the day before" isn't going to qualify. Have you read any case law on the matter? Reasonable accommodations doesn't even require that employers remove the conflict, they just need to accommodate it. The request for this "time off" was made the day he wanted to start taking said time off, for 2 days. Yelp had an "emergency" situation that obligated him be on-call. Read the standard: "Unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operations of the employer's business." Minimal burden. Furthermore, the EEOC defines what reasonable accommodations might look like: "Examples of some common religious accommodations include flexible scheduling, voluntary shift substitutions or swaps, job reassignments, and modifications to workplace policies or practice" How many of those can be implemented with no notice? None. The very idea that you and others think 0 days notice for religious accommodation is acceptable is so very confusing. The bar to show the request as unreasonable is exceptionally low. Almost anything can be considered more than a minor burden.
- doktrin 8y ago
  > You asked because it functioned as an ad hominem. No, I asked because of your extreme certainty. Both in this thread and others, you repeatedly use language like "100%!", which I frankly think can only come from someone with deep domain expertise. Unlike you, I and most others here are certainly not claiming to know beyond a shadow of doubt how a court might rule in this case (not least of which because we don't have all the facts of the case). If you're going to proclaim infallibility I think it's reasonable to have the qualifications to support it : you don't. > Have you read any case law on the matter Well, some of it at least. For instance : https://casetext.com/case/brown-v-polk-county-iowa-2 https://casetext.com/case/brown-v-polk-county-iowa-2 Of interest in that case - > "Preliminarily, we reject the defendants' argument that because Mr. Brown never explicitly asked for accommodation for his religious activities, he may not claim the protections of Title VII. An employer need have "only enough information about an employee's religious needs to permit the employer to understand the existence of a conflict between the employee's religious practices and the employer's job requirements." Heller v. EBB Auto Co., 8 F.3d 1433, 1439 (9th Cir. 1993). Because the first reprimand related directly to religious activities by Mr. Brown, we agree with the district court that the defendants were well aware of the potential for conflict between their expectations and Mr. Brown's religious activities." I would draw your attention to this part : > only enough information about an employee's religious needs to permit the employer to understand the existence of a conflict between the employee's religious practices and the employer's job requirements This is of relevance here, because it seems pretty clear that the terminated manager was outspoken about his religious affiliation. Also - > "Religion" includes "all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that [it] is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee's . . . religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business." Indicating much of the onus falls on the employer to demonstrate that accommodating religious beliefs presents an undue hardship. In this case, I think Yelp will have a hard time demonstrating that having delegation redundancy twice a year will constitute "undue hardship". Moreover, it's not enough to merely speculate about the hardship - they [Yelp] have to actually prove it : https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/952/703/1432254/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/9... (From a 10th circuit ruling) > [I]t is certainly conceivable that particular jobs may be completely incompatible with particular religious practices. It would be unfair to require employers faced with such irreconcilable conflicts to attempt futilely to resolve them. Employers faced with such conflicts should be able to meet their burden by showing that no accommodation is possible. > Although conceivable, such situations will also be rare. We therefore will be "skeptical of hypothetical hardships." [citation omitted] "The employer is on stronger ground when he has attempted various methods of accommodation and can point to hardships that actually resulted." Clearly, no methods of accommodation have been attempted in this case, since there are quite literally no major religious Christian holidays between easter and June (when the employee in question was eventually terminated) So in summary, it can fairly be argued that the employer had sufficient contextual knowledge of the employee's religious affiliation to not force them to work on his religion's major holiday, undermining the notion that advance notice is a hard prerequisite to providing accommodation. Yelp will also need to demonstrate that said accommodations (of which there were none) would constitute a non-hypothetical undue hardship (which will be difficult to demonstrate, since no attempts were ever made). Moreover, Yelp has dug themselves into a complete mess if the communication chain contains lots of juicy tidbits like "I don't care about your religion or children", in addition to establishing a policy of zero-religious-exception as a response to a request for religious accommodation. At that point, they're going to have a tough time falling back on the defense of inadequate notice (which, as shown above, is far from a given), since their response demonstrates precisely 0.0 willingness to even entertain the notion of accommodation. "Your honor, if we had more time to prepare to give him the middle finger, we would have given him both hands... I mean... wait..."

jhall1468 8y ago

> First of all, you can't trot out stuff like "I have the power of common sense" while complaining about snide comments Tit for tat. > As for due warning, they were informed of the religious observance at the time (and before Easter Sunday), and proceeded to straight up make policy on the spot that invalidated it and future religious celebrations. Yes, the the day before Easter, which he also took off as apparently Easter weekend is a holiday, not just the day. > I asked for your qualifications not to be hostile but because legal matters are often - for better and worse - more nuanced than most people's intuition, and I don't think you have adequately addressed either the legal specifics of what constitutes adequate notice, examined Yelp's response to the situation, or how any of this might look to a jury. You asked because it functioned as an ad hominem. You're part of this conversation, and haven't suggested you have any legal qualifications, which we can safely assume it means you don't. I don't need to address the legal specifics of what constitutes adequate notice, because I'm fairly confident "the day before" isn't going to qualify. Have you read any case law on the matter? Reasonable accommodations doesn't even require that employers remove the conflict, they just need to accommodate it. The request for this "time off" was made the day he wanted to start taking said time off, for 2 days. Yelp had an "emergency" situation that obligated him be on-call. Read the standard: "Unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operations of the employer's business." Minimal burden. Furthermore, the EEOC defines what reasonable accommodations might look like: "Examples of some common religious accommodations include flexible scheduling, voluntary shift substitutions or swaps, job reassignments, and modifications to workplace policies or practice" How many of those can be implemented with no notice? None. The very idea that you and others think 0 days notice for religious accommodation is acceptable is so very confusing. The bar to show the request as unreasonable is exceptionally low. Almost anything can be considered more than a minor burden.

doktrin 8y ago
> You asked because it functioned as an ad hominem. No, I asked because of your extreme certainty. Both in this thread and others, you repeatedly use language like "100%!", which I frankly think can only come from someone with deep domain expertise. Unlike you, I and most others here are certainly not claiming to know beyond a shadow of doubt how a court might rule in this case (not least of which because we don't have all the facts of the case). If you're going to proclaim infallibility I think it's reasonable to have the qualifications to support it : you don't. > Have you read any case law on the matter Well, some of it at least. For instance : https://casetext.com/case/brown-v-polk-county-iowa-2 https://casetext.com/case/brown-v-polk-county-iowa-2 Of interest in that case - > "Preliminarily, we reject the defendants' argument that because Mr. Brown never explicitly asked for accommodation for his religious activities, he may not claim the protections of Title VII. An employer need have "only enough information about an employee's religious needs to permit the employer to understand the existence of a conflict between the employee's religious practices and the employer's job requirements." Heller v. EBB Auto Co., 8 F.3d 1433, 1439 (9th Cir. 1993). Because the first reprimand related directly to religious activities by Mr. Brown, we agree with the district court that the defendants were well aware of the potential for conflict between their expectations and Mr. Brown's religious activities." I would draw your attention to this part : > only enough information about an employee's religious needs to permit the employer to understand the existence of a conflict between the employee's religious practices and the employer's job requirements This is of relevance here, because it seems pretty clear that the terminated manager was outspoken about his religious affiliation. Also - > "Religion" includes "all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that [it] is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee's . . . religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business." Indicating much of the onus falls on the employer to demonstrate that accommodating religious beliefs presents an undue hardship. In this case, I think Yelp will have a hard time demonstrating that having delegation redundancy twice a year will constitute "undue hardship". Moreover, it's not enough to merely speculate about the hardship - they [Yelp] have to actually prove it : https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/952/703/1432254/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/9... (From a 10th circuit ruling) > [I]t is certainly conceivable that particular jobs may be completely incompatible with particular religious practices. It would be unfair to require employers faced with such irreconcilable conflicts to attempt futilely to resolve them. Employers faced with such conflicts should be able to meet their burden by showing that no accommodation is possible. > Although conceivable, such situations will also be rare. We therefore will be "skeptical of hypothetical hardships." [citation omitted] "The employer is on stronger ground when he has attempted various methods of accommodation and can point to hardships that actually resulted." Clearly, no methods of accommodation have been attempted in this case, since there are quite literally no major religious Christian holidays between easter and June (when the employee in question was eventually terminated) So in summary, it can fairly be argued that the employer had sufficient contextual knowledge of the employee's religious affiliation to not force them to work on his religion's major holiday, undermining the notion that advance notice is a hard prerequisite to providing accommodation. Yelp will also need to demonstrate that said accommodations (of which there were none) would constitute a non-hypothetical undue hardship (which will be difficult to demonstrate, since no attempts were ever made). Moreover, Yelp has dug themselves into a complete mess if the communication chain contains lots of juicy tidbits like "I don't care about your religion or children", in addition to establishing a policy of zero-religious-exception as a response to a request for religious accommodation. At that point, they're going to have a tough time falling back on the defense of inadequate notice (which, as shown above, is far from a given), since their response demonstrates precisely 0.0 willingness to even entertain the notion of accommodation. "Your honor, if we had more time to prepare to give him the middle finger, we would have given him both hands... I mean... wait..."