DOJ Urges High Court to Hear Religious Accommodation Case

The U.S. Supreme Court should hear a workplace dispute between Walgreen Co. and the Seventh-day Adventist Church to refine the legal test for what employers must do to accommodate the religious practices of workers, the solicitor general’s office said.

Employers have to accommodate their workers’ religious practices unless that would cause an “undue hardship.” But the current definition of undue hardship from the high court’s 1977 ruling in TWA v. Hardison—"more than de minimis harm"—sets the bar too low, the SG’s office said in a Dec. 9 brief.

The solicitor general’s brief suggests that the justices are more likely ...