Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RELIGIOUS—2d Cir.: Summary judgment against school employee’s request for accommodation from COVID-19 vaccination policy affirmed, (Feb 27, 2025)

By Ronald Miller, J.D.

Even if the employee stated a prima facie religious discrimination claim, the district court correctly determined that summary judgment in the school district’s favor was warranted based upon the undue hardship posed by her requested exemption.

A district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of a school district against a psychologist’s claims based on the denial of her requests for religious accommodation from a COVID-19 vaccination policy and placement on unpaid leave was affirmed by the Second Circuit. The appeals court also rejected the employee’s claim the school district retaliated against her and violated GINA by requesting her family member’s vaccine history. Under Second Circuit precedent, an accommodation that would require an employer to violate the law imposes an undue hardship. The appeals court also agreed with the district court that the family member’s vaccine history did not constitute genetic information under the GINA. Accordingly, the district court correctly granted summary judgment to the school district on the religious accommodation claim under Title VII (Russo v. Patchogue-Medford School District, No. 24-378-cv (2d Cir. Feb 26, 2025)).

Vaccination policy. The employee was a school psychologist employed by the Patchogue-Medford School District. In September 2021, the school district instituted a policy, pursuant to state law, requiring employees to either receive a COVID-19 vaccination or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing. The employee sought an exemption from the policy due to her sincerely held religious beliefs against vaccination and testing.

Exemption request. After twice meeting with the employee to discuss a potential exemption from the policy, the school district determined that it could not offer one, as doing so would cause it to violate New York’s COVID-19 testing requirements.

The employee appealed this decision to the school district’s superintendent, and additionally requested an accommodation to work remotely or “another reasonable accommodation within the [D]istrict.” The superintendent denied the appeal, concluding that the school district would suffer undue hardship because the employee’s requests would cause it to violate New York law and because her “physical presence in the District is necessary to conduct the essential functions of [her] job.”

The employee ultimately took an unpaid leave of absence, during which time the school district hired a temporary replacement. When the vaccination or testing mandate was lifted, the employee resumed working for the school district.

Discrimination claims. After filing an unsuccessful EEOC complaint, the employee sued the school district, alleging that it did not provide a reasonable accommodation for her religious beliefs, and retaliated against her based upon those beliefs by placing her on unpaid leave, in violation of Title VII. She also alleged that the school district impermissibly solicited and used her genetic information by inquiring about her and her child’s vaccination histories during the religious exemption interviews, in violation of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). The employee further alleged that the school district’s placement of her on leave without pay violated Section 3020-a of New York’s Education Law.

Lower court judgment. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the school district on the federal claims. First, the court held that the school district did not violate Title VII because the employee’s requested accommodations were not reasonable. Granting her an exemption would have caused the school district to violate state law, and permitting the employee to work remotely would have prohibited her from performing necessary in-person job functions and caused the school district to incur substantial costs by hiring a replacement to cover her in-person tasks, concluded the district court. The school district’s conduct in placing the employee on unpaid leave did not constitute retaliation under Title VII because it was enforcing the valid vaccination or testing requirements under state law. Finally, the district court concluded that personal and family vaccine history do not constitute genetic information under GINA.

Religious discrimination claim. To succeed on a religious discrimination claim, a plaintiff must first establish a prima facie case by showing that “(1) [she] held a bona fide religious belief conflicting with an employment requirement; (2) [she] informed [her] employer of this belief; and (3) [she was] disciplined for failure to comply with the conflicting employment requirement.” “Once a prima facie case is established by the employee, the employer must offer him or her a reasonable accommodation, unless doing so would cause the employer to suffer an undue hardship.”

Undue hardship. The Second Circuit concluded that even assuming arguendothat the employee stated a prima facie religious discrimination claim, the district court correctly determined that summary judgment in the school district’s favor was warranted based upon the undue hardship posed by the requested exemption from the vaccine or testing mandate and by the proposed accommodation to allow her to work remotely.

Under Second Circuit precedent, an accommodation that would require an employer to violate the law imposes an undue hardship. In this instance, the employee’s requested exemption from in-person work without vaccination or testing would have placed the school district in violation of New York’s COVID-19 testing requirements. As to the employee’s proposed remote-work accommodation, the school district met its burden under Title VII of showing that providing this accommodation “would result in substantial increased costs.” Accordingly, the district court correctly granted summary judgment to the school district on the religious accommodation claim under Title VII.

GINA claim. The appeals court also concluded that the employee’s GINA claim was properly resolved in the school district’s favor because her family member’s vaccine history did not constitute genetic information under the statute.

Accordingly, the appeals court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

The case is No. 24-378-cv.

Judge: Per curiam.

Attorneys: Dayna Russo, per se. Rondiene E. Norvitz (Cruser, Mitchell, Novitz, Sanchez, Gaston & Zimet) for Patchogue-Medford School District.

Companies: Patchogue-Medford School District

Cases: Discrimination ReligiousDiscrimination Retaliation EmployeeLeave StateLawClaims Privacy Covid19 ConnecticutNews NewYorkNews VermontNews