Fort Bend County did not reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious observation when she attended church on a Sunday instead of going to work, a Houston federal jury ruled on Friday.
After a three-day trial and two hours of deliberation, the jury unanimously awarded Lois Davis nearly $350,000, including noneconomic losses, back pay and accrued benefits.
Friday’s verdict leaves only a faint heartbeat of a seven-year legal battle that has made detours three times in the nation’s higher courts — twice in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and once in the Supreme Court of the United States.
“It’s been a long road,” one of Davis’ lawyers, Raffi Melkonian of Wright Close & Barger, told The Texas Lawbook. “And we’ve still got a bit of work to do.”
Melkonian said the next step in the case will be requesting U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen to award attorneys’ fees, as well as enter final judgment on Davis’ damages.
Fort Bend County attorney Kevin Hedges, who represented the county at trial, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
The case dates back to 2011, when Fort Bend County built a new courthouse. Over the Fourth of July weekend, the county finalized its move to the new building and required workers to be available to help transfer its legal files and other items. Davis, an information technology professional for the county who Melkonian said had worked until late in the evening of Saturday, July 2, declined to come in that Sunday morning because she was a devout churchgoer.
Despite offering to come in after church to help, Fort Bend County fired her, Melkonian said. Beyond Davis’ testimony at trial as a “very compelling and truthful witness,” Melkonian said, other facts did not line up with the defense’s argument that it was crucial that Davis be present on that Sunday.
“The facts show that the project was [basically] complete on Saturday, when Ms. Davis and another key member stayed until 9 or 10 p.m.,” Melkonian said. “The next day, everyone else was [sent home] before Ms. Davis could get from church back to the site. They threw a pizza party around noon. The whole concept that the move would be ruined because Ms. Davis was not there was inconsistent with the facts.”
Melkonian said the county also had Monday, July 4, to tie any loose ends with the move.
Davis sued the county in 2012. She alleged religious discrimination against the county and other claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
At the time, Davis already had a pending complaint to the EEOC against Fort Bend County related to sexual harassment allegations. After she was fired, she tried to supplement her EEOC charge by handwriting “religion” on the “intake questionnaire” form. Once the EEOC granted her right to sue, she proceeded in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas alleging religious discrimination against her former employer as a form of retaliation for reporting sexual harassment.
After several years of litigation, only the religious discrimination charge remained in the case. U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon then dismissed the lawsuit, siding with Fort Bend County’s argument that the court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate Davis’ case since the EEOC charge did not state a religion-based claim.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the trial court’s ruling, holding that Title VII’s charge-filing requirement is not jurisdictional, instead a “prudential prerequisite to suit” – a procedural qualification – which was forfeited in this situation since Fort Bend had waited too long to raise the objection.
After Fort Bend County appealed, the question posed to the U.S. Supreme Court was whether Title VII’s charge-filing precondition to sue was a jurisdictional requirement whose absence could determine the court’s authority to hear the lawsuit, or whether the rule is simply a procedural prescription that becomes irrelevant if not challenged on a timely basis.
The nation’s high court ruled this summer that it was the latter, clearing the way for Davis to take her remaining claims before a jury.
“Prerequisites to suit like Title VII’s charge-filing instruction are not of that character; they are properly ranked among the array of claim-processing rules that must be timely raised to come into play,” a June 3 opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
Melkonian said Friday’s jury verdict sends the message to employers that they should “tell their managers about Title VII and the obligations to reasonably accommodate their employees for a sincerely-held religious belief.”
He added the verdict also verifies that employers can’t “quibble” with employees’ religious beliefs.
Davis’ lead lawyers at trial were Russ Hollenbeck, who also practices at Wright Close & Barger, and Joseph Ahmad of Houston litigation boutique Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing. Melkonian, who argued the case before the Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit, served as appellate counsel at trial and handled the jury charge.