Ninth Circuit Rejects BART’s Latest Challenge to PJI’s $7.8 Million Religious Discrimination Victory
Federal appeals court denies rehearing request after unanimously upholding verdict for six employees fired over religious objections to COVID-19 vaccination
SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has denied the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District’s (BART) request for rehearing in a religious discrimination lawsuit brought by Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), leaving intact a $7,824,580 jury verdict awarded to six former employees who lost their jobs after seeking religious accommodations to BART’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The denial follows the Ninth Circuit’s Sept. 11 published opinion in Lewis-Williams v. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, which unanimously affirmed the judgment. BART subsequently requested panel rehearing and rehearing en banc, seeking reconsideration by the original panel or a larger group of appellate judges. The court denied that request.
The case arose from BART’s 2021 vaccination mandate. According to the appellate opinion, 181 employees requested religious exemptions, but BART determined that only 70 qualified for further accommodation consideration. The agency ultimately accommodated none of those employees. In total, 73 employees who sought religious exemptions lost their jobs.
Six former employees, Tonya Lewis-Williams, Raymond Lockett, Rosalind Parker, Bradford Mitchell, Ryan Rivera and Szu-Cheng Sun, proceeded to trial in October 2024. A federal jury found that BART failed to establish that accommodating their religious convictions would impose an undue hardship, awarding each employee more than $1 million.
BART challenged the verdict through post-trial motions and subsequently appealed. The Ninth Circuit rejected those arguments, concluding that sufficient evidence supported the jury’s findings under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.
Under Title VII, employers must reasonably accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs unless doing so would impose an undue hardship. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy requires employers to demonstrate substantial increased costs in relation to their particular business.
PJI attorneys Kevin Snider and Matt McReynolds, along with attorney Gage Fender, represented the employees before the Ninth Circuit.
In its September opinion, the appellate court also rejected BART’s reliance on public health guidance as sufficient to establish undue hardship. The jury was entitled to consider whether alternatives, including masking and social distancing, could have accommodated the employees without imposing a substantial burden on BART’s operations.
The denial of rehearing leaves the Ninth Circuit’s September decision in place. BART may still seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court, but its request for further consideration by the Ninth Circuit has been rejected.
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