The employee admitted she could not do every part of her job from home. Her employer still needed a better explanation for why remote work would burden the business.

TL;DR: A federal appeals court revived a dental employee’s religious accommodation claim because the employer had not adequately supported its remote-work hardship defense. The court upheld its separate conclusion that allowing her to work in the office unvaccinated would create undue hardship.

📄 Read the court’s decision

The practice won on office work, but remote work remained in dispute

A dental practice defended a COVID-19 vaccination requirement against religious accommodation claims from three former employees. It initially won against all three, but the appeals court sent one employee’s remote-work claim back for further proceedings.

That employee testified that she could perform many, though not all, of her duties remotely. The dentist testified that allowing the three employees to work remotely would put “undue pressure on the people who were at the office” because they were needed to help with patient flow.

The practice had seven to nine front-desk staff members. The dentist did not explain why other staff could not absorb this employee’s in-person responsibilities without creating undue hardship.

That missing explanation prevented the employer from keeping its complete win.

Coworker pressure needs a connection to business operations

Under Title VII, an employer must reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious practice unless doing so would impose undue hardship. The Supreme Court’s Groff decision requires a burden substantial in the context of the particular business.

That burden can include health and safety concerns and operational problems, as well as financial costs. Effects on coworkers count when they go on to affect the business.

The court accepted that having this employee work in the dental office unvaccinated would impose undue hardship. But the remote-work proposal required its own analysis.

The employee’s inability to perform every duty remotely did not, by itself, establish that reallocating her in-person work would substantially burden the practice. On this record, the employer had not sufficiently explained the staffing consequences.

The court did not order permanent remote work or decide that redistributing duties would be reasonable in every workplace. It held that the evidence did not establish the remote-work hardship defense conclusively enough to end this employee’s case before trial.

The other two employees’ claims failed earlier in the analysis

The employer retained its wins against the other two employees because they had not adequately connected their religious beliefs to a conflict with vaccination. One relied on statements about divine protection without explaining how vaccination violated her beliefs; the other’s testimony described safety concerns and opposition to mandates.

This was an unpublished, nonprecedential Ninth Circuit decision. Its practical lesson is still useful: employers evaluating accommodations can identify the affected duties and explain what happens to the business if others take them on.

Three ways to make the accommodation analysis more concrete

1. Each proposed accommodation needs its own explanation

A strong safety justification for rejecting unvaccinated office work did not establish hardship from remote work. Evaluate each alternative’s actual effects rather than carrying the same conclusion across different proposals.

2. Coworker workload needs operational detail

Identify who would absorb the work, what capacity they have, and which responsibilities would suffer. Connect the additional workload to specific effects on patient flow, service, scheduling, or other operations that the evidence supports.

3. In-person duties need a closer look

Identify the tasks requiring attendance, their frequency, and whether others could cover them. Where redistribution would substantially burden the business, explain why; a statement that some duties require attendance may leave that question unanswered.

The practice established hardship from one proposal and fell short on another. The difference was the explanation of what the proposed arrangement would do to the business.