The swift rise of Amazon has consequences far past slow internet on Prime Day. In 2013, Amazon contracted with the cash-desperate United States Postal Service (USPS) to have their packages delivered on holidays and Sundays. This deal halted USPS’ fiscal bleeding and gave it a foothold to a booming e-commerce market. However, the rise of Sunday deliveries created problems for postal employees like Gerald Groff. Groff is an Evangelical Christian who observes a Sunday Sabbath. Citing his religious beliefs, he informed USPS of his inability to work Sundays and USPS offered him three options: (1) to choose another day of the week to observe a Sabbath; (2) to attend religious services in the morning and report to work in the afternoon; and (3) to swap his Sunday shifts with the shifts of other employees. Groff refused the first two options as violating his religious beliefs and settled for the third. However, once the deal was in effect, the burden for other employees to pick up extra Sunday shifts only grew. Groff attempted to mitigate the effect by working extra shifts during the week and transferring to a smaller postal office, but it was not enough. As the online retail giant ascended in popularity as did the volume of its packages flowing through USPS. On the more than twenty Sundays Groff’s shift were not covered, he did not report to work. Eventually, he received numerous disciplinary citations for this refusal and, in the face of termination, resigned and initiated his lawsuit in Groff v. Dejoy.1 The district court of Pennsylvania granted USPS’ motion for summary judgment and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed, holding Groff’s observance of Sunday Sabbath imposed more than a de-minimis cost on USPS.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 both prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of religion and requires employers to reasonably accommodate an employee’s beliefs. Dejoy almost perfectly mirrors the Supreme Court’s 1977 case, Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison.2 Both cases beg the question: must an employer deny the contractual rights of some employees to accommodate the religious needs of others? The Hardison Court concluded Title VII did not stretch so far. The court held when religious beliefs pose an undue hardship, or more than de-minimis-cost, to an employer the employee may be terminated. In his petition for certiorari, Groff asks the Court to dispose of the de-minimis-cost test and recognize that an inability to work one day of the week due to sincerely held religious beliefs does not pose an undue hardship on employers. With only four justices needed to grant a writ of certiorari, three justices have indicated their readiness to address the Hardison test head on.3 Now the questions becomes, who will be the fourth?