Seyfarth Synopsis: In two cases issued by the Seventh Circuit, Passarella and Dottenwhy v. Aspirus, Inc. and  Bube and Hedrington v. Aspirus Hospital, Inc. the Court held that at the motion to dismiss stage, the fact that a religious accommodation request (as plead in a complaint) “involves or even rests” on secular considerations does not negate the religious nature of the request when the request is based in part on religious beliefs.

In a set of sister cases, the Seventh Circuit reversed two lower court decisions granting the defendant heath system’s motions to dismiss.  The Court revived two lawsuits against the health system filed by Christian health care workers whose requests for exemptions from a COVID-19 vaccine mandate were denied, and whose employment with the health system was ultimately terminated for noncompliance with a mandatory vaccination policy.  The Court held that contrary to the reasoning of the lower court, the fact that the plaintiffs’ religious exemption requests contained secular arguments did not nullify the religious nature of the requests at the motion to dismiss stage.

Background

In Passarella and Bube, the four plaintiffs worked for Aspirus at a hospital in Wisconsin, all in a healthcare capacity – Megan Passarella was a nurse in a surgery unit, Sandra Dottenwhy was a pharmacy technician, and Christine Bube and Connie Hedrington were both registered nurses.  In November 2021, all sought religious exemptions from the company’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement.  All of the plaintiffs’ requests contained references to their Catholic or Christian beliefs, God, the bible, or prayer.  Importantly, all four requests also contained references to safety and health concerns about the vaccine or bodily autonomy.  Ultimately, Aspirus denied the requests on the grounds that plaintiffs’ objections to the vaccine were secular in nature, and terminated the plaintiffs’ employment for failing to comply with the vaccination policy.

In both Passarella and Bube, Aspirus moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim.  The District Court granted the motions and held that the plaintiffs’ Title VII claims did not pass muster at the pleading stage because their exemption requests did not articulate a religious objection to the vaccination requirement or explain any specific religious belief that prevented them from taking the vaccine.  Instead, the District Court held that as plead, the exemption requests and the plaintiffs’ objections to the vaccine, were based on personal autonomy, or safety or medical concerns about the vaccine, rather than religious convictions.

The Seventh Circuit’s Holding

The Court held that under Title VII, at the pleading stage, “an employee seeks accommodation because of their religion when their request, by its terms, is plausibly based at least in part on some aspect of the their religious belief or practice.”

The Court held: “The fact that an accommodation request also invokes or, as here, even turns upon secular considerations does not negate its religious nature.”  The Court continued that “[t]o conclude otherwise fails to give effect to Congress’s expansive definition of ‘religion’ [in Title VII] and, even more, denies that a matter of personal conviction can root itself in both religious and non-religious reasons.”

The Court reasoned that if it were to hold otherwise, it would be forced to discern between religious exemption requests that are “primarily” or “mostly” about religion and those that are “minimally” or “tangentially” related.  The Court further noted that the Supreme Court has specifically cautioned against judges weighing the reasonableness of  religious beliefs.

The Court concluded: “[i]f an accommodation request can be read on its face as plausibly based in part on an aspect of the plaintiff-employee’s religious belief or practice, that is enough to survive a motion to dismiss.”  The Court noted, however, that “[r]eligious accommodation requests rooting themselves entirely in safety considerations with no plain and express connection to religion will fall outside of the statute even at the pleading stage,” as will “downright ‘bizarre’ reasons having no plausible connection to religion.”

The Court also noted that that these decision are in accord with recent decisions in other circuits that similarly held that at the motion to dismiss stage, secular reasoning in a religious accommodation request does not automatically make the request non-religious.

The Court warned, “Be careful not to overread today’s decision.”  Significantly, the Court noted that discovery will afford the employer the opportunity to develop evidence that the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs weren’t sincere or even religious.  And the employer would be free to develop evidence it could not provide a reasonable accommodation without undue hardship. 

Confirming the limited scope and application of the Court’s holding, the Court noted in Passarella: “All we have decided is that Megan Passarella and Sandra Dottenwhy alleged enough in their complaints to support plausible inferences that they sought exemptions from Aspirus’s vaccine mandate based on some ‘aspect’ of their religious ‘belief’ or ‘observance.’”

In dissent, Judge Ilana D. Rovner emphasized that Dottenwhy’s and Passarella’s exemption requests contained only broad and general references to God, religion, and religious texts, but that they failed to link their objections to taking the COVID-19 vaccine to a particular belief or practice.  Judge Rovner cited to Dottenwhy’s initial request for exemption, which invoked her “rights as a Christian,” but was actually based on her concern with the speed at which the COVID-19 vaccines had been developed and distrust of information about long-term effects.  Further, Judge Royner said that although Dottenwhy told Aspirus she had prayed about the issue and sought guidance from God, and Passarella said her beliefs required that she rely on her God-given conscience to guide her, this wasn’t enough to alert the company that the requests were religious, not secular.

Judge Royner wrote: “As much as I genuinely appreciate the importance of prayer in people’s lives … I am not convinced that Congress meant to compel an employer to grant any requested accommodation that an employee has prayed about and has concluded that his or her G-d supports.”  She continued: “If that were so, there would be almost no limit to the accommodations that an employer would have to entertain under Title VII’s ban on religious discrimination.”

Practical Takeaways for Employers

The Court’s decisions may make it more difficult, at least in the Seventh Circuit, to obtain an early dismissal in vaccine litigation on the grounds that the exemption request is not “religious” in nature, though each exemption request is different and each Complaint must be analyzed on its own facts as pleaded. 

Nevertheless, even if a plaintiff-employee can survive a motion to dismiss, they will still be required to prove that they had a (i) sincere (ii) religious belief, observance, or practice that (iii) conflicted with an employment requirement.

Outside of the litigation context, employers will want to weigh this decision – and those from other circuits – when considering a request that references both secular and religious concerns.  Each religious accommodation request should be evaluated individually.  Before denying a request on the grounds that it is not “religious” in nature, an employer should seek advice of counsel.

Religious accommodation law is rapidly evolving, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Groff v. DeJoyand as decisions continue to issue in litigation over COVID vaccination policies.  Employers should ensure that their religious accommodation policies and processes are up to date and compliant.  It is also wise to ensure that the legal, HR and other personnel who are handling religious accommodation requests are trained in best practices given the current legal landscape.