Employment Law Update: Federal Court Rejects Rehearing of Religious Accommodation Claim
Date: April 17, 2026
The Ninth Circuit’s decision is remarkable not for the majority opinion, but for the eight dissents, forcefully challenging the courts’ role in evaluating the character of the employee’s asserted religious beliefs. This is different than focusing on the sincerity with which that belief is held.
In 2023, the Supreme Court in Groff v. DeJoy shifted the landscape in religious accommodation cases, requiring the use of the same “undue hardship” standard associated with other accommodation claims. Because of this higher standard, both the religious character of the employee’s asserted belief, and the sincerity with which that belief is held, have become flashpoints in religious accommodation claims.
In Detweiler, a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit first held that the plaintiff’s asserted religious objection to a nasal swab test was, in fact, based more on secular and medical opinion, than on any specific religious belief or tenet. Therefore, there was no obligation on the part of the employer to accommodate the employee’s objection. The panel decision, based its conclusion on EEOC guidance, noting that an accommodation request could be denied if the request was “not religious in nature,” along with numerous lower federal court opinions rejecting similar claims where the link between the asserted objection and religious belief was too tenuous. The panel noted in particular that a plaintiff cannot simply state a claim by couching any personal belief in religious terms, adding that “[i]nvocation of a prayer, without more, was … insufficient to elevate medical judgments to the level of religious significance.”
The eight dissenting judges on the request for rehearing took dead aim at this conclusion. They challenged the court’s ability to assess the reasonableness of the religious belief, adding that the court “may not opine on what beliefs or practices are truly religious,” and may not “dissect a believer’s articulation of her religious belief.” The sole standard for a court’s review, the dissenters argued, was an assessment of the sincerity of the individual’s belief. The fact that the belief may have a secular component (i.e., the alleged carcinogenic effect of the swab) was an irrelevant consideration. The dissent’s view provides a much more expansive basis for expressing religious objections that an employer must accommodate. By contrast, the Ninth Circuit’s panel decision provides an employer with an additional path to screen out truly religious claims from those that are personal objections cloaked in religious garb.
The dispute here potentially sets this case up for Supreme Court review. The ultimate decision of the Ninth Circuit is not out of line with other court decisions based on very similar facts. It does, however, conflict with other Court of Appeals decisions, which makes the extent to which an employer may weigh the religious character of an employee’s objection a live issue for Supreme Court review.
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