Wilkerson v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority

What the court decided

The court denied the motion for reconsideration. The motion concerned the court’s earlier order that had granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Summary judgment is a decision without a trial when the record shows that no important factual dispute requires one. The earlier order denied summary judgment on Wilkerson’s Title VII failure-to-accommodate claim and related aiding-and-abetting claims under the New York City Human Rights Law and New York State Human Rights Law.

Background

Wilkerson worked as a construction flagger for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which the opinion calls “Transit,” and Richard John was his supervisor. Wilkerson is an observant Muslim and wears a beard as part of his faith. Some construction-flagging work may require proximity to diesel-powered locomotives that emit toxic gases. Transit therefore required employees performing that work to use respirators.

The opinion states that a powered air-purifying respirator could accommodate Wilkerson’s facial hair. Wilkerson was repeatedly told that he would receive one, but he never did. In 2018, he was told to shave or leave a respirator class. After he declined to shave, he was removed from the class, was told he would not be paid for that day, and was transferred from construction flagging to platform-conductor work pending the next assignment selection.

Transit employees selected assignments through a seniority system established by a collective bargaining agreement. Construction flaggers selected preferred locations, shifts, and regular days off from a weekly list, although management could assign workers without regard to those selections when project conditions required it.

Reconsideration analysis

The defendants argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in TWA v. Hardison required judgment in their favor because accommodating Wilkerson would have required an exception to the seniority system. The court explained that Hardison involved evidence of an actual conflict: the employee lacked enough seniority to select shifts avoiding his religious-observance problem, and other employees were unwilling to take the affected shifts.

The court found no comparable concrete conflict in this record. The defendants did not identify evidence of Wilkerson’s seniority, establish how many assignments actually required respirators, or show that Wilkerson lacked enough seniority to select assignments without proximity to the relevant locomotives. The record also did not show that Transit had tried to work out an accommodation with the Union. Because these factual questions remained unresolved, the court held that the seniority conflict was only theoretical at the summary-judgment stage.

The court stated that Title VII did not require the defendants to violate the seniority system. However, the defendants could present a seniority-system defense at trial if supported by evidence. The court rejected the argument that the existence of a collective bargaining agreement alone allowed Transit to refuse to consider a reasonable religious accommodation.

Disposition

The motion for reconsideration was denied. The Clerk of Court was directed to close the motion at Dkt. No. 49.

Textual uncertainty

The opinion inconsistently identifies who filed the reconsideration motion: its opening says Wilkerson moved for reconsideration, while the discussion describes the defendants as having filed the motion and the conclusion refers to the motion without identifying the movant. The opinion is dated June 17, 2021, while the supplied filing information states June 17, 2022.