The EEOC announced last week that Center One and Capital Management Services, two related companies, have settled a Title VII lawsuit that was brought by the EEOC and subsequently remanded for trial by the 3rd Circuit. The suit charged failure to accommodate an employee's religious practices. The employee joined the case as a plaintiff. According to the EEOC:
The EEOC’s lawsuit alleged that in October 2016, a Center One employee, an adherent of Messianic Judaism, requested a reasonable accommodation of his religious belief requiring abstaining from work on religious observance days.... Center One refused to grant the employee a schedule modification to observe religious holidays because he was unable to provide a certification from a religious leader or religious organization supporting his request. Instead, the company imposed disciplinary points against the employee..., even after being informed he was unable to obtain the requested certification because he was not a member of a congregation, thereby forcing the employee to resign....
The parties subsequently agreed to settle the case before trial, and on Oct. 24, the federal court approved the 18-month consent decree resolving the litigation. In addition to paying $60,000 to the employee, Center One and Capital Management Services are prohibited going forward from unlawfully denying reasonable accommodations for employees’ sincerely held religious beliefs, observances, and practices, and they are specifically barred from requiring that employees provide a certification from a religious leader, organization, or group as a general precondition for obtaining religious accommodation....
