In February 1998, the EEOC district office in Chicago, Illinois brought this suit against Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., an international tire manufacturer, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. Two male employees, one Baptist and the other Catholic, alleged that the defendant failed to reasonably accommodate their religious belief of not performing manual labor on Sundays and thereby violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Specifically, both men were subject to shift-realignments which caused their Monday to Friday schedules to include Sundays. However, the defendant made numerous attempts to accommodate both men. For example, shift-swaps, leaves of absence to wait for seniority positions, and reassignment to other positions. The main obstacle in this case was that both men's beliefs precluded them not only from working on Sundays, but also from asking other men to work for them.

In May of 2000, the court granted the defense motion for summary judgment, holding that the defendant acted reasonably in its effort to accommodate. E.E.O.C. v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 95 F. Supp. 2d 913 (C.D. Ill. 2000). The EEOC appealed the ruling, but the appeal was withdrawn in August of 2000.

Jason Chester - 06/15/2007


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