MUSLIM TRUCK DRIVERS WIN SUIT AFTER GETTING FIRED FOR REFUSING TO DELIVER BEER

In an EEOC lawsuit, a jury awarded $240,000 to two Muslim truck drivers who got fired for refusing to deliver beer, but they may not be able to collect because their former employer is no longer in business

In 2013, Business Insurance reported that:

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued a trucking firm for allegedly firing two Muslim drivers who refused to deliver alcohol because of their religious beliefs.

The EEOC said Wednesday it is charging Morton, Ill.-based Star Transport Inc. with violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion.

According to the EEOC, the trucking firm refused to accommodate the two unnamed employees and terminated them.

“Our investigation revealed that Star could have readily avoided assigning these employees to alcohol delivery without any undue hardship, but chose to force the issue despite the employees' Islamic religion,” EEOC Chicago District Director John P. Rowe said in a statement.

In October of this year, a jury awarded the two truck drivers $240,000, but they may not be able to collect because Star Transportation, their former employer, is no longer in business.

Once the jury award was announced, it took only a New York minute for right wingers to complain that the Obama administration will go to bat for Muslims, but not for Christians. Megyn Kelly of Fox News said: “The Obama administration actually represented the two Muslims in this case, but has sometimes taken a very different position in the case of Christians trying to assert their religious beliefs.”

$240,000 JURY AWARD TO MUSLIM TRUCK DRIVERS WHO WERE FIRED FOR REFUSING TO TRNASPORT ALCOHOL

By Eugene Volokh

The Washington Post
October 23, 2015

One more data point on the “When does your religion legally excuse you from doing part of your job?” question — like it or not, under American law, employers sometimes do have to excuse employees from tasks that the employees find religiously objectionable. Tuesday, two Muslim truck drivers who were fired for refusing to deliver shipments containing alcohol were awarded $40,000 in compensatory damages and $200,000 in punitive damages by the jury in their discrimination claim.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission brought suit on their behalf (EEOC v. Star Transport Co., Inc. (N.D. Ill.)), arguing that the employer had failed to provide “reasonable accommodations” to the employees — i.e., accommodations (including an exemption from job duties) that could be provided without “undue hardship” to the employer or others. The court noted that Star Transport had indeed often “swap[ped]’ loads between drivers,” and Star Transport conceded that it could have easily accommodated this request, too, but argued (unsuccessfully) that it shouldn’t be liable for punitive damages.

This concession was important, and if Star Transport had fought the case, and shown that such a swap would indeed be difficult (and that its “forced dispatch” policy, which on its face generally required drivers to deliver what they were told, was consistently enforced), it should have won. But when accommodating an employee just requires a bit of extra administrative hassle, in the form of arranging a swap (given that most other drivers presumably wouldn’t care about whether they are delivering alcohol), the federal Civil Rights Act requires the employer to do this.

But as the Peoria Journal Star (Andy Kravetz) notes, “Whether the men collect their money is another story. Star Transport went out of business earlier this year and it’s unknown who is now responsible for the judgment.” Thanks to Professor Howard Friedman (Religion Clause) for the pointer.