Background
BART adopted a COVID-19 vaccination requirement in October 2021, directing employees to become fully vaccinated by December 13 unless entitled to a medical or religious exemption. BART identified 70 employees as eligible for potential religious accommodations but concluded that none could be accommodated without undue hardship. Six employees who refused vaccination ultimately lost their jobs.
The employees sued under Title VII, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. After an initial trial ended in a partial verdict and mistrial, a second jury found that BART had not established its undue-hardship defense and awarded the six employees a combined $7,824,580. The district court denied BART’s motions for judgment as a matter of law and a new trial. BART appealed, while the employees conditionally cross-appealed the dismissal of their Free Exercise claims and Ryan Rivera challenged the denial of reinstatement.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Circuit affirmed. Applying the Supreme Court’s standard in Groff v. DeJoy, the panel held that BART could not establish undue hardship merely by showing that vaccination was safer or more effective than alternative precautions. BART had to prove that accommodating the employees would impose a substantial, excessive, or unjustifiable burden. Its reliance on public-health guidance was not dispositive, particularly because the guidance itself and testimony from the officials consulted during BART’s decision-making were not introduced at trial.
Substantial evidence permitted the jury to find that masking, distancing, remote work, or other measures could have accommodated these employees without undue hardship. Their jobs generally involved limited close contact with coworkers or the public, and BART identified no evidence that they were unable or unwilling to follow alternative precautions. The verdict was not against the clear weight of the evidence, and counsel’s violations of an evidentiary order did not warrant a new trial because the court sustained BART’s objections and instructed the jury appropriately.
The panel also held that ordering front pay rather than reinstatement for Rivera was not plain error, particularly because he had elected front pay below. It dismissed the employees’ conditional Free Exercise cross-appeal as moot because affirmance of their statutory verdict provided relief for the same harm. In a separate concurrence, Judge Ryan Nelson criticized the district court’s Free Exercise analysis, but the panel did not decide that constitutional issue.
Key Takeaways
- An employer does not establish Title VII undue hardship merely by proving that a proposed religious accommodation is less safe than its preferred policy; the resulting burden must be substantial, excessive, or unjustifiable.
- General public-health guidance may carry special weight, but it is not conclusive and does not replace a fact-specific assessment of the employer’s operations, each employee’s duties, and available precautions.
- A jury may reject even unrebutted expert testimony, and an appellate court will not disturb a supported verdict simply because the evidence could also support contrary findings.
Why It Matters
The decision emphasizes that employers defending vaccine-mandate accommodation cases must present concrete, employee-specific evidence of substantial hardship. Evidence that vaccination was the most effective safety measure does not automatically establish that masking, distancing, remote work, or other less effective measures were unreasonable.
The ruling also distinguishes transportation employees with limited interpersonal contact from frontline healthcare workers and firefighters whose duties inherently involve close contact and heightened public-safety concerns. Undue hardship remains a fact-intensive inquiry tied to the employer’s particular business and the employee’s actual responsibilities.