Groff v. DeJoy
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that employers cannot refuse a worker's religious accommodation request simply by showing any cost greater than a trivial, 'de minimis' amount — a standard that had governed workplace religion cases for nearly fifty years.
The decision raises the bar employers must clear, requiring them to show that accommodating a religious practice would impose substantial costs relative to the overall operation of their specific business, a change that strengthens protections for workers of all faiths.
How it got here: A federal district court granted summary judgment to USPS; the Third Circuit affirmed relying on the de minimis standard; Groff asked the Supreme Court to review and the Court agreed.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Gerald Groff, an Evangelical Christian who believed Sunday should be devoted to worship and rest, worked as a rural mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. After USPS agreed to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays, Groff refused to work that day, transferred to a smaller rural station hoping to avoid the requirement, and was eventually disciplined repeatedly before resigning. He sued USPS, arguing the agency could have accommodated his religious practice without causing the kind of hardship that would justify a refusal under federal civil rights law.
The question before the Court
How much of a burden must an employer prove before it can legally refuse to accommodate an employee's religious practice under federal civil rights law?
The Court's answer
No — the decades-old "de minimis cost" standard is far too low a bar for employers to clear. The Court ruled that to deny a religious accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, an employer must show that providing it would result in substantial increased costs relative to the overall conduct of its particular business. A burden that is merely more than trivial does not qualify as "undue hardship."
The Court traced how a single sentence from its 1977 Hardison decision had been read by lower courts as the definitive rule, leading many courts to allow employers to deny accommodations on thin grounds. That reading was wrong: Hardison itself used the word "substantial" three times when describing the actual standard, and the ordinary meaning of "undue hardship" — something genuinely excessive or unjustifiable — points well past any de minimis threshold. The Court clarified the correct standard but sent the case back to lower courts to apply it to Groff's situation.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Workers seeking religious accommodations — whether for Sabbath observance, religious dress, or holy day absences — now have stronger legal footing because employers must demonstrate a genuinely significant business burden before refusing. Minority religious groups, who told the Court the old standard had been used to deny even modest requests, stand to benefit most. Employers and HR departments nationwide will need to reassess how they evaluate and respond to accommodation requests.
What changes now
The case returns to the Third Circuit to apply the newly clarified "substantial burden" standard to Groff's specific situation, including reassessing whether options such as incentive pay or coordination with other nearby postal stations could have worked without imposing substantial costs on USPS. The Court left open the possibility that USPS could still prevail on remand. Lower courts across the country will also need to apply the higher bar going forward in religious-accommodation cases brought by workers of all faiths.
What this does not decide
The Court did not apply the new standard to Groff's facts — that task was sent back to the lower courts. The Court also declined to incorporate Americans with Disabilities Act case law into Title VII analysis and did not fully endorse or invalidate the EEOC's existing religious-accommodation guidance, which predated today's clarification.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor agreed with the Court's clarification but wrote separately to emphasize two points the majority left understated. First, Hardison should not be overruled because stare decisis carries extra weight in statutory cases — Congress has had repeated chances to change the rule and declined. Second, she pushed back gently on how the majority framed co-worker impacts: hardship on employees can also be hardship on the conduct of the business, because labor is central to how businesses operate. Animus toward religion is off limits, but genuine operational burdens on employees count.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court began with Title VII's text. 'Hardship,' by any dictionary, means something more severe than a mere inconvenience — 'something hard to bear,' involving privation or adversity. The modifier 'undue' raises the bar further, meaning the hardship must be 'excessive' or 'unjustifiable.' That ordinary meaning points well past a 'de minimis' (very small or trivial) cost, toward something closer to 'substantial' costs.
- The Court then examined how 'de minimis' crept into the law. A single line in the 1977 Hardison decision read: 'To require TWA to bear more than a de minimis cost... is an undue hardship.' But the same decision, responding to a dissent, used the word 'substantial' three times in a footnote — describing the true threshold for when accommodation is not required. The 'de minimis' phrase directly conflicted with the decision's own language.
- Hardison's core ruling was actually about seniority rights — whether Title VII required an employer to override a union's seniority system to give a religious employee a preferred schedule. The undue-hardship language was 'fleeting' by comparison. The Court concluded that the 'de minimis' phrase was never intended to define the broader standard for all religious-accommodation cases not involving seniority.
- Based on the text and a correct reading of Hardison, the Court adopted a clarified standard: an employer shows 'undue hardship' when the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the overall conduct of its particular business. Courts must weigh all relevant factors, including the nature, size, and operating cost of the employer and the practical impact of the specific accommodation.
- The Court clarified two recurring issues. First, co-worker impacts count only if they actually affect how the business operates — and co-workers' hostility or dislike of a religious practice or accommodation can never be counted as a cognizable hardship. If it could, employers could effectively use religious animus as a defense, which would put Title VII at war with itself.
- Second, employers must do more than find that one proposed accommodation would be too costly. Title VII requires genuinely attempting to accommodate the employee's religious practice, not just considering and rejecting the most obvious option. Other alternatives — such as voluntary shift swaps or incentive pay — must also be explored before an employer can claim undue hardship.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Limits Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison (432 U.S. 63)
The Court rejected lower courts' reading of Hardison as setting only a de minimis cost threshold, clarifying it requires proof of substantial business burden.