An employee’s refusal to work scheduled shifts and participate in mandatory overtime at a Washington state nursing facility constituted “undue hardship” for her employer, regardless of the employee’s claims that the shifts conflict with religious beliefs, the state Supreme Court ruled.
Yakima Valley School in Saleh, WA, did not violate former employee Adelina Gabriela Suarez’s religious beliefs when it terminated her after several incidents of refusing mandatory overtime and calling off when scheduled to work. Yakima Valley School is a state-run nursing facility and residential care home for people with developmental disabilities.
Suarez was hired to work at Yakima Valley School in October 2019 as an Attendant Counselor 1, per court documents. The position was tied to night shifts – 10 pm to 6:30 am – with Mondays and Tuesdays off. The job also had a one-year probationary period.
Per the union’s collective bargaining agreement, employees may take up to two days off per calendar year for purposes of faith or conscience, the court ruling said. Due to staffing requirements, employees at Yakima Valley School worked mandatory overtime shifts and could be excused from those shifts once per quarter.
The case background provided in the Supreme Court’s ruling noted that Suarez repeatedly asked for Saturdays off during her probationary period. She was granted a weeks-long leave in April 2019 for Passover. She also refused to work mandatory overtime shifts in October and November 2018, March 2019, and from July to August 2019.
‘State did all it could’
Court documents note that Suarez is a “nondenominational Christian” who regularly attended church services on Tuesdays and Saturdays, which is considered Sabbath during which followers must abstain from work.
On Sunday, Sept. 19, 2019, Suarez notified her shift supervisor that she was refusing to come in as scheduled because it conflicted with her religious beliefs. She was terminated days later and sued, alleging religious discrimination that Yakima Valley School did not offer accommodations for her religious beliefs.
The state Supreme Court disagreed with her in its ruling, which was issued July 25.
“Suarez requests accommodations for her religious practices that would force Yakima Valley to suffer an undue hardship in the conduct of its business,” Justice G. Helen Whitener wrote in the decision, noting that swapping positions and days off would have required the facility to violate seniority rights outlined in its collective bargaining agreement. “[T]he record clearly establishes that the State did all it could to accommodate Suarez’s repeated requests for time off and terminated her only after she refused, at almost the last minute, to work a scheduled shift. Even taken in the light most favorable to Suarez, the record establishes that one of her coworkers was forced, last minute, to work that shift.”
Officials were pleased with the outcome and vowed to make sure it was finalized appropriately.
“The Department of Social and Health Services is pleased that the Washington Supreme Court overwhelmingly affirmed a Superior Court’s summary judgment order dismissing all of plaintiff’s claims involving wrongful termination from her position at the Yakima Valley School,” a department spokeswoman said in a statement to McKnight’s Long-Term Care News Friday. “Having adequate staffing is critical to the great work done by YVS. The Department will continue to monitor this action as any opportunities for further review are exhausted, and the matter reaches finality.”
