Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RELIGIOUS—6th Cir.: Employee who requested COVID-19 vax exemption revives claims following Muldrow, (Sep 30, 2025)

By Tulay Turan, J.D.

The Sixth Circuit’s “independent harm” requirement clashes head-on with Muldrow.

Vacating summary judgment in an employer’s favor on an employee’s Title VII disparate treatment and failure-to-accommodate claims arising from the employer’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the Sixth Circuit ruled the district court must reassess those claims in light of the Supreme Court’s Muldrow decision. The appeals court held that under Muldrow, “a court cannot dismiss a Title VII complaint simply because the plaintiff’s only harm is having to choose between violating his religious beliefs and violating workplace policies.” In addition, the court reversed and remanded the district court’s judgment on the employee’s retaliation claim because there was a triable issue regarding the employer’s interview process about his religious beliefs. The court, however, affirmed the grant of summary judgment as to his wife’s claims because she lacked Article III standing (Bilyeu v. UT-Battelle, LLC, No. 24-5418 (6th Cir. Sept. 29, 2025)).

In August 2021, UT-Battelle, which manages the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, announced a policy requiring all employees to get a COVID-19 vaccine by October 15 or face termination. The employees, a married Christian couple, objected to COVID vaccines based on their religious faith. They submitted religious accommodation requests six days after their employer announced the policy. A day after the application deadline, UT-Battelle announced that employees who requested a religious accommodation would have to go on unpaid leave or use vacation days until the end of the pandemic.

Medical accommodation. During the employees’ hearing on their motion for a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the unpaid leave policy, the wife claimed she heard for the first time that breastfeeding mothers like her could qualify for a medical accommodation. She immediately requested one, which the employer granted two days before the vaccine policy took effect. As a result, she neither missed work nor lost pay.

Panel interview. The husband, however, was told he had to sit for a panel interview, during which UT-Battelle officials thoroughly examined him about his religious beliefs. The employer defended this meeting as designed to assess the sincerity of his religious convictions. The employer required him to read a “fact sheet” that included the views of various religious leaders in support of taking the vaccine. Only after his process could a religious objector forego the vaccine by being placed on indefinite unpaid leave.

Unpaid leave. The husband used his one month’s worth of accumulated vacation days and then went on unpaid leave. He was without pay for three days, until December 3, when the employer ended the unpaid leave policy and allowed him to return to work. The couple alleged the unpaid leave policy caused them to take various precautions to make sure they could continue providing for their family. They took these steps no earlier than November 1, which was the day the mandate took effect. Thus, they took these actions rearranging their finances after the wife had received her medical accommodation.

Lower court proceedings. In January 2022, the couple filed a complaint against UT-Battelle alleging it violated Title VII based on disparate treatment, failure to accommodate, and retaliation. The district court granted summary judgment to UT-Battelle on all claims, except the wife’s retaliation claim. The parties then settled that claim. The couple filed this appeal.

Wife lacked standing. Affirming the district court’s grant of summary judgment against the wife, the appeals court found she lacked Article III standing to bring her claims. The two instances of alleged harm that she offered did not satisfy the requirement for an Article III harm under governing case law and the facts of her case. She claimed she “suffered the emotional toll of facing effective termination for [her] beliefs.” The court found that was not a cognizable injury under Sixth Circuit precedent.

The wife also claimed the threat of unpaid leave caused her and her husband to take reasonable precautions because they had to “quickly provide for their family before the period of unpaid leave began.” However, she took these actions—including taking out a loan against her retirement plan and selling one of their cars—after she had received her medical accommodation. Her risk of unpaid leave had been eliminated, given that she had received a medical exemption. Thus, she lacked standing, and the district court did not err in granting summary judgment against her.

Disparate treatment. Turning to the husband’s disparate treatment claim, the court vacated the district court’s grant of summary judgment in UT-Battelle’s favor and remanded the claim so the district court could reconsider its decision in light of intervening Supreme Court precedent. The district court granted UT-Battelle summary judgment on the sole basis that the employee did not suffer a materially adverse employment action. However, after the district court rendered its judgment, the Supreme Court, in Muldrow, overruled the materially adverse standard. Thus, the appeals court found that it must vacate the grant of summary judgment and leave it for the district court to consider whether the employee met the test set forth in Muldrow.

Failure to accommodate. Likewise, the court found Muldrow affected the employee’s failure-to-accommodate claim. Under Sixth Circuit case law, a plaintiff must show he has suffered “some independent harm caused by a conflict between his employment obligation and his religion.” “The ‘independent harm’ requirement clashes head-on with Muldrow,” the court wrote. Thus, the court held that under Muldrow, “a court cannot dismiss a Title VII complaint simply because the plaintiff’s only harm is having to choose between violating his religious beliefs and violating workplace policies.” Accordingly, the court vacated the district court’s grant of summary judgment and remanded the claim for the district court to consider under the new test.

Retaliation. Finally, the court ruled the district court erred in granting summary judgment on the employee’s retaliation claim because a triable issue existed as to whether UT-Battelle retaliated against him by subjecting him to an interview process that demeaned him for his religious beliefs. Thus, the court reversed the district court’s ruling on this claim and remanded for further proceedings.

Interview process. UT-Battelle subjected the employee to an interview process purportedly designed to assess the sincerity of his religious beliefs. According to the employee, however, the meeting turned into a “gauntlet of inappropriate questioning of his religious beliefs and attempted re-education as to his moral views.” At the meeting, UT-Battelle forced him to sign a “certification statement” that he had read and understood the “fact sheet” about the use of cell lines from aborted fetuses. Thus, he had to read the fact sheet whether he wanted to or not. In addition, the fact sheet ended with a paragraph titled “Religious belief” where he might argue at trial the listing of “facts” by his employer literally turned into the preaching of religious dogma.

Forced to change beliefs? A reasonable jury could conclude that this type of interview process “could well dissuade a reasonable worker from making” a request for accommodations. The jury could believe the fact sheet would make interviewees feel like bad Christians and attempt to coerce employees into changing their religious beliefs. That leads directly to the conclusion a reasonable juror could reach that UT-Battelle was forcing the employee to give up his religious beliefs to comply with a workplace mandate. Forcing someone to sit through a harassing interview where they are told they are a “bad Christian” who should “see the light” and “change their ways” is a materially adverse employment action, the court found. The employee presented evidence that this is what took place. It is now up to a jury to decide whether it actually did, the court concluded.

The case is No. 24-5418.

Judge: Bush, J.

Attorneys: Brian Field (Schaerr Jaffe) for Jeffrey Bilyeu. David Lawrence Schenberg (Ogletree Deakins) for UT-Battelle, LLC.

Companies: UT-Battelle, LLC

Cases: Discrimination ReligiousDiscrimination Covid19 Retaliation KentuckyNews MichiganNews OhioNews TennesseeNews GCNNews