Groff v. DeJoy
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that employers must show a genuine, substantial burden on their business — not just a trivial added cost — before they can legally deny a worker's request for religious accommodation, overturning a legal standard that courts had applied for nearly 50 years.
The decision strengthens workplace protections for religious workers of all faiths, particularly those of minority religions who asked for small accommodations that employers had routinely and easily rejected under the old rule.
How it got here: The district court granted summary judgment to USPS; the Third Circuit affirmed under the de minimis standard; Groff asked the Supreme Court to step in and the Court agreed to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Gerald Groff, an Evangelical Christian postal worker in rural Pennsylvania, believed that Sundays must be devoted to rest and worship. When the U.S. Postal Service began Sunday deliveries for Amazon, USPS repeatedly assigned Groff Sunday shifts, redistributed his deliveries to unwilling co-workers, and disciplined him for refusing to show up. After years of escalating discipline, Groff resigned in 2019 and sued USPS for failing to accommodate his religious practice under federal civil rights law.
The question before the Court
When an employer refuses a worker's request for time off for religious observance, must the employer prove more than just a tiny extra cost to justify the refusal?
The Court's answer
No — an employer cannot legally deny a religious accommodation request simply by showing the accommodation would cost more than a tiny amount. The Court clarified that Title VII's phrase "undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business" means what it says: a genuine, substantial burden on the business — not just any minor inconvenience. A "hardship" is something hard to bear, and adding "undue" raises the bar further to something excessive or unjustifiable — a far cry from a "de minimis," meaning very small or trifling, cost.
The Court traced the misreading to a single passing sentence in the 1977 Hardison case, which lower courts had treated as the definitive rule while ignoring that decision's repeated references to "substantial" costs. The correct standard is whether granting the accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of the employer's particular business, assessed case by case based on the nature, size, and operating costs of that employer. The case goes back to the lower courts to apply this clarified test.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Workers who need schedule changes for Sabbath observance, religious attire, or other faith-based practices now have meaningfully stronger legal protection. Employers can no longer refuse accommodation by pointing to minor added costs or co-workers' annoyance; they must show the burden is genuinely substantial to how their business operates. Religious groups representing Sikhs, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and Seventh-day Adventists had each told the Court the old rule was routinely used against them.
What changes now
The case returns to the lower courts, which must now decide whether USPS can satisfy the correct "substantial increased costs" standard to justify its refusal to accommodate Groff's Sunday Sabbath practice. The Court left open the possibility that USPS might still prevail and noted that further factual development may be needed. For other workers and employers nationwide, the decision takes effect immediately: the de minimis standard is gone, and employers must reassess how they handle religious accommodation requests.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether USPS actually violated Title VII in Groff's case — that question goes back to the lower courts. The ruling also does not incorporate the Americans with Disabilities Act's cost standard into Title VII, and it does not fully ratify or endorse the existing body of EEOC guidance on religious accommodations, which has not been reviewed under the clarified standard.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor agreed with the result but wrote separately to stress that Hardison was rightly preserved rather than overruled. She argued that stare decisis carries extra weight in statutory cases, and that Congress has had many opportunities over decades to change the de minimis rule but has not done so, signaling acceptance of the general framework. She also clarified that genuine hardships imposed on co-workers can legitimately count as undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business, because labor is often the most important factor in how a business operates.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court began with the text of Title VII, which bars employers from refusing to accommodate an employee's religious practice unless doing so causes 'undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business.' Reading those words in their ordinary sense: 'hardship' means something hard to bear — more severe than a mere burden — and 'undue' means excessive or unjustifiable. Both words together point to a meaningfully high standard, far above a trivially small cost.
- Many lower courts had built their analysis on a single sentence in the 1977 decision Trans World Airlines v. Hardison: 'To require TWA to bear more than a de minimis cost in order to give Hardison Saturdays off is an undue hardship.' The Court examined Hardison closely and found this line was taken out of context. That case was primarily about whether employers had to override workers' seniority rights under collective bargaining agreements — not about setting a general cost threshold.
- In the very footnote where 'de minimis' appeared, Hardison used the word 'substantial' three separate times to describe when costs become too great for an employer to bear. The Court concluded the better reading of Hardison is that an accommodation imposes undue hardship only when it results in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of the employer's particular business — a fact-specific inquiry considering the accommodation's practical impact and the employer's nature, size, and operating budget.
- The Court also addressed two recurring issues. First, co-worker impacts are relevant only if they ripple out to affect how the business actually operates; hostility among co-workers toward the religion being accommodated is never a legitimate hardship. Second, employers must genuinely seek workable options — they cannot conclude that one particular approach (like mandatory overtime) is too costly without also exploring alternatives such as voluntary shift swaps or coordination with nearby facilities.
- Because the Third Circuit applied the de minimis standard, it may have prematurely dismissed several possible accommodations for Groff — including incentive pay or coordination with nearby postal stations — without properly analyzing their impact on the business as a whole. The Court sends the case back for the lower courts to apply the correct 'substantial increased costs' standard to the facts.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Limits Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison (432 U. S. 63)
Hardison's 'de minimis cost' phrase no longer controls; the correct standard requires showing substantial increased costs to the business.