Statute and Case Law Relationship
In Cloutier v. Costco, 390 F3d. 126 (2004), Kimberly Cloutier alleged that her employer, Costco Wholesale Corp, failed to offer her a reasonable accommodation after she informed it to a conflict between the "no facial jewelry" provision of its dress code and her religious practice as a member of the Church of Body Modification (CBM) (Body piercing, religion and the workplace, 2005). She argues that this failure amounts to religious discrimination in violation of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a), and the corresponding Massachusetts statute, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B, § 4(1A). Title VII requires employers to accommodate the "sincerely held" religious beliefs of employees and applicants, unless doing so imposes an "undue hardship," usually defined as anything more than a de minimus or token cost (Mitchell, 2005).
While working in a front-end position at Costco, Cloutier began body piercing to follow the tenets of CBM, a religious organization encouraging its members to "grow as individuals through body modification and its teachings," and to be "confident role models in learning, teaching, and displaying body modification." (Mitchell, 2005) Costco attempted to enforce a new...
When she was eventually terminated for excess absences, she filed a charge of religiously-based discrimination with the EEOC. Costco then offered to accept the bandage accommodation, which Cloutier now rejected as contrary to her beliefs. The EEOC found discrimination and Cloutier sued in the U.S. District Court.
The district court granted summary judgment for Costco, concluding that it reasonably accommodated Cloutier by offering to reinstate her if she covered her facial piercing with a band-aid (Body piercing, religion and the workplace, 2005). The court held that Costco had no duty to accommodate Cloutier because it could not do so without undue hardship. Ruling that an undue hardship takes into account both economic costs, such as lost business or having to hire additional employees, but also non-economic costs, such as compromising the integrity of a seniority system, the Court concluded that the burden to Costco of violating an important personal appearance policy trumped the religious need of an employee to express her belief in piercing. Thus this case, has strong implications for…
