Beyond De Minimis: Navigating the New Landscape of Religious Accommodations in Florida Post-Groff

For nearly five decades, the standard for “undue hardship” in religious accommodation cases under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was defined by a single, arguably stray, phrase from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1977 decision in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63, 97 S. Ct. 2264 (1977). By stating that an employer need not bear more than a de minimis cost to accommodate an employee’s religious practice, the Court created a threshold so low that it was frequently described by lower courts as “not a difficult threshold to pass.”^[1]

However, in 2023, the legal landscape shifted. In Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447, 143 S. Ct. 2279 (2023), the Supreme Court clarified the burden for employers seeking to deny religious accommodations. This article explores the evolution of the “undue hardship” defense, analyzes its recent post-Groff applications in Florida’s federal district courts, and provides guidance for navigating this more demanding evidentiary standard.

The Hardison Legacy

To understand the magnitude of Groff, it helps to understand the background of religious accommodation law. Title VII prohibits covered employers from discriminating against any individual with respect to such individual’s compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individual’s religion or other covered protected characteristic.^[2] “Religion” is broadly defined under the statute as including “all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee’s or prospective employee’s religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”^[3] In the 11th Circuit, the standard for claims of failure to provide religious accommodations was most recently summarized in Bailey v. Metro Ambulance Services, 992 F.3d 1265 (11th Cir. 2021):

To establish a reasonable-accommodation claim of religious disparate treatment, [an employee] must first set forth a prima facie case by showing that (1) his sincere and bona fide religious belief conflicted with an employment requirement, and (2) his employer took adverse employment action against him because of his inability to comply with the employment requirement or because of the employer’s perceived need for his reasonable accommodation. We have recognized that [an employee’s] burden to establish a prima facie case “is not onerous.”

Once [an employee] makes out a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the employer to show that it either offered a reasonable accommodation or that it cannot reasonably accommodate the employee’s religious practice without undue hardship on its business.^[4]

Because the burden to establish a prima facie case “is not onerous,” most cases focus on the accommodation analysis. As one law professor described it: “The law of religious accommodation takes a hands-off approach to an employee’s assertion that they hold certain religious beliefs that need to be accommodated, in part due to the understanding that an employer may not be familiar with the beliefs in question.”^[5]

The real litigation usually begins at the second stage when determining if the accommodation would result in an “undue hardship.” In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Hardison to address when there is an undue hardship.

In Hardison, an employee followed a religion that required him to observe a sabbath by refraining from performing any work from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday.^[6] Initially, the employee transferred shifts, which permitted him to observe his sabbath.^[7] However, when a coworker went on vacation, the employer asked the employee to work on a Saturday.^[8] The parties were unable to reach an agreement on how to handle the scheduling, so the employee refused to report to work on Saturdays.^[9] As a result, the employer terminated his employment.^[10]

After the trial court ruled in favor of the employer, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding that the employer had not satisfied its duty to accommodate.^[11] The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review whether the employer took adequate steps to accommodate the employee’s religion.^[12] Ultimately, the Court ruled that the employer’s conduct was not a violation of Title VII.^[13]

The Court began by reviewing the language and history of Title VII to conclude that Congress had intended “to make it an unlawful employment practice under [Title VII] for an employer not to make reasonable accommodations, short of undue hardship, for the religious practices of his employees and prospective employees.”^[14] But there was “no guidance for determining the degree of accommodation that is required of an employer.”^[15] The Court then set out to provide that guidance.

The Court noted initially how any accommodation could not include the “unequal treatment” of depriving another employee of their shift preference just because they did not observe a Saturday sabbath.^[16] As the Court stated:

It would be anomalous to conclude that, by “reasonable accommodation,” Congress meant that an employer must deny the shift and job preference of some employees, as well as deprive them of their contractual rights, in order to accommodate or prefer the religious needs of others, and we conclude that Title VII does not require an employer to go that far.^[17]

Next, the Court looked at the alternative options the employer had to avoid scheduling the employee on Saturday, and in doing so, set what became seen as the standard for claims of undue hardship: “To require [the employer] to bear more than a de minimis cost in order to give [the employee] Saturdays off is an undue hardship.”^[18] Notably, even here, the Court was focused more on the unequal treatment this would cause for other employees:

[T]o require [the employer] to bear additional costs when no such costs are incurred to give other employees the days off that they want would involve unequal treatment of employees on the basis of their religion. By suggesting that [the employer] should incur certain costs in order to give [the employee] Saturdays off the Court of Appeals would in effect require [the employer] to finance an additional Saturday off and then to choose the employee who will enjoy it on the basis of his religious beliefs. While incurring extra costs to secure a replacement for [the employee] might remove the necessity of compelling another employee to work involuntarily in [his] place, it would not change the fact that the privilege of having Saturdays off would be allocated according to religious beliefs.^[19]

The Court then concluded by reiterating that the purpose of Title VII is “the elimination of discrimination in employment,” so it would not construe the statute “to require an employer to discriminate against some employees in order to enable others to observe their Sabbath.”^[20] For those reasons, the Court reversed the case.

As Justice Marshall described in dissent: “An employer, the Court concludes, need not grant even the most minor special privilege to religious observers to enable them to follow their faith.”^[21] In the Hardison era, an employer could prevail by showing any cost that was more than trivial.

Notably, the Court’s holding and reasoning in Hardison focused more on unequal treatment than it did de minimis cost. Despite this, it was the de minimis cost language that courts relied on. A review of cases in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and Florida’s federal district courts yields only eight cases that have referenced Hardison’s “unequal treatment” language. Of the eight cases, four relate to whether an accommodation requiring other employees to swap shifts would impose an undue hardship.^[22] Two other cases that reference unequal treatment do so as part of the de minimis analysis,^[23] and one references unequal treatment only in passing.^[24] Only one district court case appears to use the “unequal treatment” language as the basis for finding an undue hardship.^[25]

As will be shown in Groff, regardless of whether it was the use of the “de minimis” language or the “unequal treatment” language, the Supreme Court found that lower courts should have been more guided by the parts of Hardison that focused on higher standards. Instead, as one court noted, under Hardison, “the undue hardship test is ‘not a difficult threshold to pass.’”^[26]

The Groff Clarification

In Groff, the Supreme Court readdressed the de minimis standard. The Court clarified that demonstrating undue hardship requires an employer to show that “the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.”^[27]

In Groff, the employee believed that “Sunday should be devoted to worship and rest.”^[28] In 2013, the employer entered an agreement with Amazon to assist with Sunday deliveries.^[29] The employee initially transferred to a different location that was not part of the Sunday delivery agreement, but in March 2017, Amazon began delivering from that location on Sundays as well.^[30] While the location tried to make other arrangements for the employee to avoid working on Sundays, he continued to receive progressive discipline and resigned in January 2019.^[31]

The trial court granted summary judgment to the employer, which the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed based on Hardison. As the Third Circuit pointed out, the de minimis test was “not a difficult threshold to pass.”^[32]

On review, the Supreme Court began by providing a detailed review of the history and context around the Hardison opinion. As the Court pointed out, the primary concern when the petitions for certiorari were filed in Hardison was whether the 1972 amendments to Title VII violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[33] The parties in Hardison “had good reason to expect that the Establishment Clause would figure prominently in the Court’s analysis” as there was a series of cases decided and heard around this time that focused on that issue.^[34] But, “constitutional concerns played no on-stage role in the Court’s opinion” in Hardison.^[35] Instead, the Hardison Court focused on the seniority rights of other employees and whether Title VII required depriving them of those rights to accommodate a more junior employee’s religious practices.^[36] As Justice Alito pointed out in Groff:

In the briefs and at argument, little space was devoted to the question of determining when increased costs amount to an “undue hardship” under the statute, but a single, but oft-quoted, sentence in the opinion of the Court, if taken literally, suggested that even a pittance might be too much for an employer to be forced to endure. The line read as follows: “To require TWA to bear more than a de minimis cost in order to give Hardison Saturdays off is an undue hardship.”^[37]

Based on this background, the Court in Groff found that it was doubtful this line was meant to take on the larger role of the standard for undue hardship.^[38] Despite that, lower courts had “latched on to ‘de minimis’ as the governing standard.”^[39] So, the Supreme Court took the opportunity in Groff to clarify the “undue hardship” standard. In doing so, the Court specifically held that “showing ‘more than a de minimis cost,’ as that phrase is used in common parlance, does not suffice to establish ‘undue hardship’ under Title VII.”^[40]

The Court denounced attempts to reduce Hardison “to that one phrase.”^[41] Instead, the Court read Hardison as stating that an undue hardship exists “when a burden is substantial in the overall context of an employer’s business.”^[42] The Court added that this is a “fact-specific inquiry.”^[43]

In explaining this holding, the Court added that “an employer [can]not escape liability simply by showing that an accommodation would impose some sort of additional costs.”^[44] The employer would need to show something closer to “substantial additional costs” or “substantial expenditures.”^[45]

The Court did not settle on one “favored synonym” for the phrase “undue hardship.”^[46] Instead, it set out that the employer must show that the burden “would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.”^[47] The Supreme Court instructed lower courts to consider “all relevant factors in the case at hand, including the particular accommodations at issue and their practical impact in light of the nature, size, and operating cost of an employer.”^[48]

The Groff Court also referred to the Hardison Court’s “unequal treatment” language as a “passing reference.”^[49] But the Groff Court still discussed the impact of an accommodation on coworkers. In doing so, it clarified that only those coworker impacts that affect the conduct of the employer’s business are relevant.^[50] This would not include “employee animosity to a particular religion, to religion in general, or to the very notion of accommodating religious practice.”^[51]

Finally, the Supreme Court emphasized that an employer’s obligation does not end once it determines that a particular accommodation would impose an undue hardship. “Consideration of other options would also be necessary” as part of the undue hardship analysis.^[52]

In addition to clarifying the undue hardship standard itself, the Groff opinion made several key clarifications that change how attorneys should litigate these cases. The first is that context matters. A cost that is substantial for a small family business in Ocala may not be substantial for a multinational corporation operating in Miami. The second is that the impact on coworkers is only relevant if it affects the conduct of the business. The third is the requirement to explore multiple options. Employers cannot simply reject one accommodation; they must consider other options as part of the analysis. As shown by the religious accommodation decisions post-Groff, these considerations matter.

Post-Groff Reality: Analyzing Caselaw from Florida’s Federal Courts

Recent decisions from the U.S. district courts seated in Florida illustrate how courts are applying this heightened standard. The cases generally fall into two categories: 1) those involving tangible safety or operational risks; and 2) those relying on speculative mission-based hardships.

• When Employers Still Succeed: Health, Safety, and Business Judgment — In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida’s federal district courts have many times addressed vaccination and masking exemptions. In two opinions from the U.S. Middle District of Florida, the courts found that an undue hardship existed while applying the standard in Groff.

In Gregson v. PGA Tour, Inc., No. 3:24-cv-254-TJC-SJH, slip op. (M.D. Fla. Mar. 23, 2026),^[53] the employer required employees to work from home in March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.^[54] In 2021, as the employer prepared to return to office work, it required employees to either show proof of vaccination or complete an exemption request form.^[55] The employee completed the exemption request form, citing both religious and medical objections.^[56] The employer approved the religious accommodation in October 2021.^[57] But the employer still required masking and weekly testing, which the employee also objected to on religious grounds.^[58] After a few weeks of negotiations, the employer determined that it would require the employee to work from the office at least three days a week and comply with masking and testing requirements.^[59] The employee “insisted that masking and testing violated her religious beliefs.”^[60] The employer terminated her employment in November 2021.^[61]

For the purposes of summary judgment, the court presumed that the employee had presented a prima facie case of religious discrimination.^[62] The court instead focused on “whether it was an undue hardship to allow [the employee] to work from home or return to the office without testing and masking.”^[63] In reviewing that question, the court granted summary judgment to the employer.

The court’s decision was for two reasons. First, regarding the request to work from home, the court relied on the employer’s business judgment that in-person collaboration was a necessary part of the employee’s job and said that it was “not enough for [the employee] to merely disagree.”^[64] Second, the court looked to Groff to say that the determination for undue hardship is not limited to costs and must take into account all factors in a “context-specific application.”^[65] Based on this, the court held: “Given the circumstances at the time, it would have been an undue hardship as a matter of law for [the employer] to be required to allow an unvaccinated employee to work in an office around others without the precaution of masking and testing.”^[66]

Similarly, in Adamson v. Mayo Clinic, No. 3:23-cv-1284-BJD-MCR, 2025 WL 1238485 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 22, 2025), the court found that the employer could not accommodate the employee without an undue hardship. In Adamson, the employee was a laboratory supervisor at a hospital.^[67] In October 2021, the employer emailed its staff to say that vaccinations for COVID-19 would be mandatory, subject to medical and religious exemptions.^[68] The employee’s request for a religious accommodation to the vaccine was denied because the employer found that the employee had not “clearly explained the conflict between their religious beliefs and receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.”^[69] The employee refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine and refused to participate in any testing protocol.^[70] As a result, the employer terminated her employment.^[71]

Most of the court’s opinion in Adamson focused on the sincerity of the employee’s beliefs, which the court held that the employee failed to establish.^[72] But the court went on to state that, “even had [the employee] offered evidence from which a factfinder could find that her religious beliefs prevented her from taking the Covid-19 vaccine,” the employer would still have succeeded in showing an undue hardship.^[73]

The court relied on Groff to define “undue hardship” as “something that causes suffering, privation, or adversity on an unjustifiable or excessive level.”^[74] It then held that granting the accommodation would cause an undue hardship because the staffing situation was dire, federal agencies required vaccination, the employee could not perform her job remotely, and her physical presence “poised a physical danger to both [the employer’s] employees and patients as [the employee] refused to even test for Covid-19.”^[75] Under those circumstances, it would have caused an undue hardship to grant her religious accommodation.^[76]

What the Gregson and Adamson decisions show is that courts may still find an undue hardship under Groff when the employer can articulate a clear reason that is related to its business and context specific. But in other cases post-Groff, the courts are beginning to hold employers to a higher standard.

• When Employers Fail: The Speculation Gap — In Ellis v. Chronister, No. 8:22-cv-2508-KKM-CPT, slip op. (M.D. Fla. June 3, 2024), the employee worked as a detention deputy for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.^[77] In October 2020, the employee converted to the Sunni sect of Islam and requested an exemption from the physical appearance and grooming policy in order to grow a beard.^[78] In February 2021, the employer granted the exemption for the employee to grow a beard as long as it did not exceed a quarter inch in length.^[79] The employee also requested an exemption to wear a kufi, which the employer denied without explanation.^[80] In December 2021, the employee requested an exemption to grow his beard to one inch in length, which the employer denied.^[81]

After that denial, the employee filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).^[82] In April 2022, the employee arrived at work wearing a kufi, was told to leave work, and was ultimately suspended five days for violating the uniform policy.^[83] In May 2022, the employer conducted an investigation into whether the employee’s statements in his charge of discrimination violated a policy against public disparagement.^[84] Ultimately, the employer chose to terminate the employee in August 2022 based on that public disparagement policy.^[85]

Due to the beard-related claims being time barred, the court’s analysis regarding accommodations was limited to the request to wear a kufi.^[86] On this, the court held that the employer was not entitled to summary judgment, specifically relying on Groff.^[87]

The employer argued that the wearing of a kufi would cause safety concerns for deputies and incarcerated individuals.^[88] But the court found that the employer failed to submit evidence showing an undue hardship for two reasons as required under Groff. First, the employer did not “identify any actual costs” that it would suffer by allowing the employee to wear a kufi.^[89] The court emphasized that the employer “bears the burden to explain how the overall cost — economic or noneconomic — of [the employee] wearing a kufi imposes a substantial hardship on [the employer].”^[90] As the court noted, “Groff requires analysis in the light of the ‘particular business’ and the ‘particular accommodations at issue.’”^[91]

The second issue noted by the court was that the employer failed to “identify any evidence that it considered other possible accommodations.”^[92] The court quoted Groff in holding that “Title VII requires [the employer] to reasonably accommodate [the employee]’s practice of religion, not merely that [the employer] assess the reasonableness of a particular possible accommodation.”^[93] The court noted that the employer failed “to even consider other accommodations.”^[94]

Based on the employer’s failure to identify more than speculative costs, and its failure to consider alternative accommodations, the court held that it was not entitled to summary judgment under Groff.^[95]

Similarly, in Kristofersdottir v. CVS Health Corp., No. 24-CV-80057-RLR, 2025 WL 295152 (S.D. Fla. Jan. 24, 2025), the court analyzed claims of an undue hardship in providing religious accommodations.^[96] In Kristofersdottir, the employer announced an initiative in 2021 that required its nurse practitioners to provide care that “includes education and treatment for pregnancy prevention.”^[97] The employee, a nurse practitioner, had a religious objection to prescribing contraceptives.^[98] Prior to the 2021 initiative, the employee had a religious accommodation that allowed her to avoid providing contraceptive care.^[99] After the 2021 initiative, the employer revoked all religious accommodations, and the employee’s supervisor informed her that she would have to provide contraceptive services.^[100] When the employee refused to do this, the employer terminated her employment.^[101]

The employee brought multiple claims, including failure to accommodate under Title VII.^[102] The employer did not dispute that the employee established a prima facie case for failure to accommodate, but instead it argued that it could not accommodate the employee without an undue hardship.^[103] Specifically, the employer argued that accommodating the employee “would negatively affect [the employers’] essential mission; exempting [the employee] would inconvenience patients and threaten reputational damage; and because alternative accommodations were not feasible.”^[104]

In support, the employer provided evidence that providing pregnancy prevention care at all clinic locations served the employer’s “overall mission of becoming a primary care enabled destination and expanding women’s health care, particularly to underserved communities lacking access to primary care providers.”^[105] The employee responded to this by providing evidence that only 0.4% of visits to the clinic where she worked involved contraceptive care.^[106] She also testified that she herself only saw between five and 10 patients a year seeking contraceptive services.^[107]

The employer also pointed to reputational damage and patient inconvenience, providing two complaints from patients, including one publicly on Yelp, about not providing this care.^[108] The employee argued that these two complaints were not conclusive evidence given the size of the employer’s operations.^[109]

Finally, the employer provided evidence that there were no available alternative accommodations, such as transferring the employee, because there were no vacant roles into which to transfer the employee.^[110]

The court applied the standard from Groff in finding that these arguments presented genuine disputes of material fact. While the employee’s position focused “on the economic costs of providing [the employee’s] accommodations in the context of [the employers’] overall operations,” the employer emphasized “the non-economic costs, such as harm to [the employers’] mission, patients’ inconvenience, and the risk of reputational damage.”^[111]

The court concluded that both sides presented evidence, and since the undue hardship analysis of a failure to accommodate claim requires considering “all relevant factors in the case at hand,” there were genuine disputes of material fact for a jury to decide.^[112]

Both Ellis and Kristofersdottir highlight the importance post-Groff that employers do more than speculate as to an undue hardship. It is now required that the employer point to specific costs that are tailored to the context of its business. It is also required that the employer show it considered alternative options, not just the accommodation requested by the employee.

Conclusion

The shift from Hardison to Groff represents a change in the view of religious liberty in the workplace. As Justic Marshall’s dissent noted in Hardison, that decision effectively “compel[led] adherents of minority religions to make the cruel choice of surrendering their religion or their job.”^[113] With Groff, employers now face a higher burden in establishing an undue hardship defense when denying religious accommodations.

That burden requires considering the particular accommodation at issue in the context of the particular business and providing evidence to support non-speculative economic or non-economic costs and consideration of alternative accommodations. Of course, the burden is not insurmountable. Courts can, and will, still support the business judgment of an employer and find an undue hardship when it is supported by the record. But we have moved past the days when an employer only had to show a de minimis cost and into the days of requiring something more.

This column is submitted on behalf of the Labor and Employment Law Section, Chelsie J. Flynn, chair, and Alicia Koepke, editor.