No Unemployment Benefits Because Employee Failed To Notify Employer of Scope of Needed Religious Accommodation

In Rhodes v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 2013 Pa. Commw. Unpub. LEXIS 890 (PA Commonwealth Ct., Dec. 16, 2013), the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania agreed with the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review that a former veterans' center food service worker had left his job voluntarily, and had not been forced to leave because of discrimination based on his religious beliefs. Therefore he was not entitled to unemployment benefits.  The former employee had informed his employer that he had religious objections to participating in religious holidays.  The employer accommodated him.  However, when the employee refused to set up for a Fathers' Day luncheon, he was disciplined, and resigned.  The court held that the employee failed to advise his employer that his religious beliefs precluded him from participating not just in religious holidays, but in secular ones also, and thus did not give the employer a reasonable opportunity to accommodate those beliefs.