A United States federal jury has awarded $2.25 million to a man fired by the Federal Aviation Administration for refusing to work on Sabbath, or Saturday.  Don Reed was the victim of religious discrimination, said the Denver jury, rejecting the FAA’s argument that accommodation of Reed’s beliefs would have left the agency dangerously short-staffed.

Reed, a nondenominational Sabbath-keeper, observes a day of rest from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.  An FAA employee since 1990, Reed says his Sabbath-keeping was accommodated by two successive managers.  In 1995, however, a new manager called Reed’s belief a “scam” and a “religion of convenience,” firing Reed after he failed to show for work on six Saturdays. 

Mitchell Tyner, an associate general counsel for the Adventist Church worldwide, welcomed the jury’s verdict, saying that employees should rarely be forced to choose between their faith and their job, and only then when accommodation would cause genuine hardship to the employer.

Each year, Tyner participates in as many as 30 lawsuits involving on-the-job religious discrimination—usually related to Sabbath-keeping. He says the scope of the problem is much larger than most people realize. 

Every day, on average, two or three Adventist Church members in the United States lose their jobs or are denied jobs because employers will not accommodate Sabbath observance, says Tyner.

“Free exercise of religion is a fundamental legal principle,” Tyner adds. “But in practice, legal protection for people of faith in the workplace is simply not adequate.” 

He cautions that even when an employee wins a jury verdict, employment cases have the second highest reversal rate of any type of case, and that large damage awards are often subject to remittiture, or subsequent reduction by the court. 

Tyner, who has twice litigated religious discrimination cases against the FAA, says the Adventist Church will file an amicus brief in support of Reed should the FAA appeal the outcome of the case.