Southwest Lawyer Training Nixed, Religious Bias Loss Upheld (1)

Southwest Airlines Co. won reversal of some, but not all, of a Texas federal court jury’s verdict that the airline engaged in religious discrimination when it fired a Christian flight attendant after she sent graphic anti-abortion messages to her union president.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit also reversed the trial judge’s order directing a trio of airline lawyers to attend religious-liberty training before the Christian legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, saying the sanction wasn’t geared toward promoting court order compliance.

The appeals court had put the edict on hold last year.

The unanimous three-judge panel affirmed the jury’s finding that the airline violated Charlene Carter’s rights to practice her religion but didn’t show Southwest ran afoul of provisions of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting bias based on religious beliefs.

Title VII protects all aspects of religious observance, practice, and belief, but the prohibitions against belief-based bias aren’t fully equivalent with the ban against unequal treatment based on observing or practicing one’s faith, the Fifth Circuit said. The statute forbids an employer to discriminate or fail to accommodate a worker’s religion unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on its business, but that restriction doesn’t apply to claims based on beliefs, the court said.

The verdict for Carter, which awarded damages and later ordered her reinstated, can’t stand on the belief-based claim because the evidence showed Southwest fired her for violating its social media and other policies in furtherance of her anti-abortion views rather than based on her beliefs as a Christian, Judge Edith Brown Clement said.

But the flight attendant’s Title VII victory against the airline had to be upheld on her practice-based claim, Clement said. Judges Kurt D. Engelhardt and Cory T. Wilson joined the opinion.

Southwest was wrong that other employees’ discontent with Carter’s views was sufficient to show it faced an undue hardship if it hadn’t acted as it did, the Fifth Circuit said. That was so regardless of whether the evidence was examined under the standard that applied in the circuit at the time of Carter’s trial, it said, or under the US Supreme Court’s since clarified test.

The panel rejected co-defendant Transport Workers Union of America’s challenge to the jury’s finding for Carter on her trial claims against it under Title VII, for retaliation under the Railway Labor Act, and for breach its duty to fairly represent her.

“This decision is another victory for Charlene Carter,” the National Right to Work Legal Foundation that represented her said in an emailed statement. The Court of Appeals has affirmed that both TWU union bosses and Southwest Airlines violated Carter’s legal rights when the union instigated her termination by Southwest in response to voicing her opposition to union political activism, including union activities that violated her religious beliefs.”

Neither the airline nor the union immediately replied to requests for comment.

Injunction, Sanctions

As part of the judgment in her favor, US District Court for the Northern District of Texas Judge Brantley Starr ordered injunctive relief against Southwest and the union, including issuance of a notice to flight attendants stating they “may not” be discriminated against based on their religious views and expression.

Southwest was correct that the injunction didn’t pass constitutional muster, Clement said. Portions of it simply directed the defendants to “obey the law” and “our court has long held” that such injunctions are improper. That made the injunction overly vague, as did a provision requiring worker religious rights to be reasonably accommodated, which typically involves “a fact-intensive inquiry,” the judge said.

Starr also went too far in ordering religious-liberty training for the Southwest lawyers after finding the company flouted the notice portion of the injunctive relief by instead telling workers it doesn’t discriminate based on religion, the court said. The judge’s finding that the airline failed to comply with the notice order was “supported by the record,” but civil contempt sanctions should only strive to coerce a defiant party into compliance, it said.

The training requirement was “undoubtedly punitive in nature,” as it “did little to coerce the airline’s compliance” and “risks appearing contemptuous like the contemnor,” Clement said.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Inc.; Pryor & Bruce; and Jenkins & Watkins PC represent Carter. Reed Smith LLP; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; and Ryan Law Partners LLP represent Southwest. Law Offices of Cloutman & Greenfield PLLC represents the union.

The cases are Carter v. Local 556, Transport Workers Union of Am., 5th Cir., No. 23-10008, 5/8/25, Carter v. Sw. Airlines Co., 5th Cir., No. 23-10536, 5/8/25, and Carter v. Sw. Airlines Co., 5th Cir., No. 23-10836, 5/8/25.