Colorado Jury Tosses Religious Failure to Accommodate Claims
After a nearly
eight-year battle with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and
several intervenors, a Denver airport contractor defeated a lawsuit alleging it
failed to accommodate Muslim women who asked to wear long skirts at work based
on their religious belief that women should dress modestly. See
EEOC v. Jetstream Ground Services, Inc., No. 13-cv-02340-CMA-KMT, in the
United States District Court for the District of Colorado.
The contractor,
Jetstream Ground Services, argued that allowing the women to work in long
skirts as aircraft cabin cleaners posed an undue hardship based on the safety
risks they faced when accessing aircraft from jetway stairs. Last fall, the district court refused to
grant summary judgment on this issue for Jetstream, and the case proceeded to
trial.Last week, a federal jury in Colorado returned a verdict that found the EEOC and the intervenors failed to prove their discrimination claims.
Employers faced with discrimination claims based on an alleged failure to accommodate religious beliefs should be mindful that the determination of the existence of an undue hardship is based on the facts of each case, and cannot be based on speculative safety concerns.
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