A case involving a United States Postal Service (USPS) employee who was not allowed Saturdays off for his day of rest and worship was settled Oct. 11 when the Postal Service awarded him U.S. $65,000 for lost wages and grievances endured, and granted him his Sabbath off.

Lonnie Leonard of Roswell, New Mexico, asked for Saturdays off after he became a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

“He did everything he could, but ran out of vacation time—used his vacation and personal time in order to not work on Saturday,” says Mitchell Tyner, an associate general counsel for the church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The USPS continually said they couldn’t accommodate Leonard’s requests at the time, but were looking for available positions in the immediate area that would give him Saturdays off. However, Tyner believes, the USPS should have looked more widely.

Tyner calls this case “very significant” because the Postal Service can be a “difficult employer. To have Saturdays off, you must have seniority, and to have seniority, you must work Saturdays,” he says. “It’s circular.”

The world church’s Office of General Counsel handles 20 or more cases a year involving Adventists and the United States Postal Service. “Out of 20 cases a year, on average, we win one outright, lose one, and settle the others on terms acceptable to the member,” Tyner explains. “Nationally, 98.2 percent of civil cases are settled before trial.”

What was special about this case that yielded such a result?  “I wish I knew,” says Tyner.

The first negotiations in the case began in October of 2004, and it was voted to accept litigation in December of that year. Leonard has worked for the USPS for 20 years.