Sun Worshipping Atheist Loses Religious Discrimination Suit

In religious discrimination cases under Title VII, courts are often reluctant to “play God” by deciding what is or is not a sincerely held religious belief or practice. The cases usually hinge on whether the employer reasonably accommodated the employee’s religious conflict with a workplace policy, or whether the requested accommodation imposed an undue hardship on the employer.  As noted in my original article “The Employee with the Dragon Tattoo”, even tattoos and piercings have been recognized as sincerely held religious practices.

However, the California Court of Appeals has held that a prison guard’s self-created church of “Sun Worshiping Atheism” is not a protected religion, and the employer had no duty to accommodate the plaintiff’s belief in getting a full night’s sleep by waiving mandatory overtime hours. [Marshel Copple v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (Cal. Ct. App. 4^th Dist.)]

When hired at the prison, Marshel Copple was told there was mandatory overtime. However, shortly after being hired, he requested to work only 8 hour shifts based on Sun Worshiping Atheism’s religious tenets of praying in the sun, exercising, socializing, getting fresh air, sleeping well and being skeptical in all things.  When the prison declined to accommodate his request, he refused to work three overtime shifts and subsequently resigned, claiming constructive discharge. He filed an EEOC Charge, which was dismissed and and subsequently brought suit under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act.  Following a summary judgment ruling against him in a lower court, he appealed the adverse ruling.

In affirming the dismissal of the lawsuit, the California appellate court held that religions address “fundamental and ultimate questions having to do with deep and imponderable matters”, and that Sun Worshiping Atheism was simply a practice of living a healthy lifestyle, with none of the trappings of a religion.

In my post “Sign of the Beast Hand Scanning Case Provides Valuable Lesson to Employers", I discussed how an employer’s failure to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs resulted in a high dollar jury verdict for the employee.  In that case, the employee was denied a reasonable accommodation to his religious belief that the technology behind the employer’s hand scanning time clock system had a connection to the “mark of the beast”  as alluded to in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Bible. 

However in a recent similar case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit found in favor of the employer, where the employee refused to provide a Social Security number because he considered it the “mark of the beast.”  In Yeager v. FirstEnergy Generation Corp. (6^th Cir.), the Sixth Circuit held an employer has no duty to accommodate a religious belief where such an accommodation would violate a federal statute, which in this case, required the employer to collect and report the Social Security numbers of their employees.

Mark Fijman is a labor and employment attorney with Phelps Dunbar, LLP, which has offices in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Alabama, North Carolina and London. To view his firm bio, click here. He can be reached at (601) 360-9716 and by e-mail at fijmanm@phelps.com