The Supreme Court inched closer this week to undoing a decades-old mistake that has denied meaningful workplace protections for religious employees. On Monday the high court asked the solicitor general to outline the government's view in Patterson v. Walgreen, a case under consideration for a full hearing.
Darrell Patterson, a Seventh-day Adventist, alleges that his employer, the Walgreens drugstore chain, failed to accommodate his Sabbath observance. According to Mr. Patterson, the company said he faced demotion or termination after he refused to conduct training on a Saturday. Walgreens asserts that Mr. Patterson rejected reasonable alternatives, and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the company's favor in March 2018. The case raises a fundamental legal question: What exactly constitutes a reasonable accommodation for an employee's religious practices?
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