Trans World Airlines v. Hardison
432 U.S. 63 (1977)
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Rule of Law:
Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employer is not required to violate a bona fide seniority system or incur more than a de minimis cost to provide a reasonable accommodation for an employee's religious practices, as either would constitute an undue hardship.
Facts:
- Trans World Airlines (TWA) operated a large, 24/7 maintenance base in Kansas City where shift assignments were governed by a seniority system in a collective bargaining agreement with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).
- Larry G. Hardison, a TWA employee, began practicing a religion that prohibited him from working from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday.
- Initially, Hardison worked a night shift that accommodated his religious observance.
- Hardison voluntarily bid for and transferred to a different department with a separate seniority list, where he ranked second from the bottom.
- Due to his low seniority in the new position, Hardison was required to work on Saturdays.
- The union was unwilling to violate the seniority system to find a replacement for Hardison, and no senior employees volunteered to swap shifts.
- When no accommodation was reached, Hardison refused to report for his required Saturday shifts.
- TWA discharged Hardison for insubordination for refusing to work his designated shift.
Procedural Posture:
- Larry Hardison sued Trans World Airlines (TWA) and the International Association of Machinists (IAM) in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, alleging religious discrimination in violation of Title VII.
- After a bench trial, the District Court (trial court) ruled in favor of TWA and IAM.
- Hardison, as appellant, appealed the judgment against TWA to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
- The Court of Appeals (intermediate appellate court) reversed the District Court's judgment for TWA, holding that it had failed to reasonably accommodate Hardison.
- TWA and IAM, as petitioners, each filed separate petitions for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted both petitions.
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Issue:
Does Title VII's requirement for an employer to 'reasonably accommodate' an employee's religious practices, short of 'undue hardship,' compel the employer to violate the seniority provisions of a valid collective bargaining agreement or incur more than a de minimis cost?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice White
No. Title VII's duty to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious practices does not require an employer to take steps inconsistent with an otherwise valid collective bargaining agreement or to bear more than a de minimis cost. The primary purpose of Title VII is to eliminate discrimination, not to grant preferential treatment based on religion. Forcing TWA to circumvent the neutral seniority system would have deprived senior employees of their contractual rights and constituted unequal treatment. Furthermore, requiring TWA to pay premium wages for a replacement or to leave a critical position unfilled would impose an 'undue hardship,' which the Court defined as any cost greater than de minimis. Since TWA made good faith efforts to find a solution within the existing seniority structure, it satisfied its obligations under the statute.
Dissenting - Justice Marshall
Yes. The majority's holding deals a 'fatal blow' to the statutory duty to accommodate by adopting a position Congress expressly rejected. The very concept of accommodation requires some form of preferential treatment or exemption from a neutral rule; to reject an accommodation simply because it provides a 'privilege' is to render the statute meaningless. The majority's 'de minimis cost' test is an intolerably narrow interpretation of 'undue hardship.' TWA failed to prove undue hardship because it did not exhaust all reasonable, cost-free options, such as actively seeking voluntary shift swaps or exploring a simple trade of days with another employee. By not requiring more from a large employer, the Court forces employees to make the cruel choice between their religion and their job.
Analysis:
This decision significantly narrowed the scope of an employer's duty to provide religious accommodation under Title VII. By establishing the 'de minimis cost' standard for undue hardship, the Court made it substantially easier for employers to deny accommodation requests that involve any financial expenditure or operational disruption. The ruling also strongly affirmed the integrity of bona fide seniority systems, holding that they need not be violated to accommodate an individual's religious needs. This prioritizes collectively bargained rights over individual religious practices and has remained a controlling precedent in religious accommodation law, setting a high bar for employees to overcome.
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