Center One, LLC, a provider of consumer debt collection services, and Capital Management Services, LP, a related company based in Buffalo, New York, will pay $60,000 to settle a religious accommodation lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today. 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. The EEOC charged that 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 for his religious-based absences, 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 EEOC charged.
Such alleged conduct violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees’ religious beliefs, practices, and observances absent undue hardship on the employers’ business. The EEOC filed suit (U.S. EEOC, et al. v. Center One, LLC, et al., Civil Action No. 2:19-cv-1242) in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and the employee, represented by attorneys from the Stanford Law School Religious Liberty Clinic, subsequently joined as a plaintiff in the case. The district court later granted summary judgment to Center One and Capital Management Services, and the EEOC and employee appealed. On Feb. 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated the district court’s ruling and remanded the case for trial (U.S. EEOC, et al. v. Center One, LLC, et al., Nos. 22-2943, 22-2944).
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. Center One and Capital Management Services must create and disseminate an employment policy governing the provision of reasonable accommodations for religion and provide training to company officials responsible for addressing employee requests for such accommodations.