WASHINGTON DC- The Supreme Court of the United States ruled this Thursday in favor of a Christian mail carrier who sued the US Postal Service (USPS) for rejecting his request not to work on Sunday, and returned the case to the lower court forums for review.
In a unanimous ruling, the court clarified the conditions under which a business can refuse to accept petitions from its employees for religious reasons and said that employers must show that accepting the petition would create “undue hardship.”
The opinion was written by Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, and stipulates that in the future courts “must decide whether this hardship would be material in the context of an employer’s business.”
The mail carrier in question, Gerald Groff, sued the USPS for penalizing him when he refused to deliver Amazon packages on Sunday, despite trying to find substitutes for some years.
The decision returns the case to the lower courts to consider the complaint according to the new criteria established by the court.
This is the latest in a series of rulings expanding religious rights in the country, after a conservative-majority court last year sided with a Christian coach who was suspended from his job at a high school for refusing to stop praying with your players after games.
In addition, the Supreme Court is expected to rule again soon on legal protections for religion, with a case involving a wedding web designer who wants to refuse to work for same-sex couples based on her beliefs.
