SCOTUS revives case brought by postal worker seeking religious accommodations

The Supreme Court revived the case of a former mail carrier, an evangelical Christian, who said the United States Postal Service violated federal law by failing to reasonably accommodate his inability to work on Sundays. The court said unanimously that a lower court was too quick to deny the employee’s request for accommodation and should take another look at the impact the request would have on the Postal Service as a whole. The new ruling, in clarifying previous precedent for religious accommodations, will likely make it harder for an employer to refuse to accommodate the religious beliefs of an employee under Title VII of the civil rights law. The Supreme Court left the door open that the Postal Service might still prevail in the case, and the justices said they were leaving it to the lower court to revisit the case under the clarified standard.