Legacy Health (Legacy) adopted a COVID-19 vaccination policy for its eight Washington- and Oregon-area hospitals in August 2021. Legacy denied requests from employees for religious exemptions from the vaccination policy. Several current or former Legacy employees then sued Legacy for discrimination on the basis of religion in violation of Title VII.
Title VII requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for their employees’ religious beliefs unless doing so would cause “undue hardship” to the employer’s business. (42 U.S.C. section 2000e(j).) The U.S. district court granted summary judgment to Legacy on undue-hardship grounds, finding that the employees failed to dispute Legacy’s evidence that their requested vaccine exemptions would impose a substantial burden on Legacy’s healthcare business. The employees appealed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit used this case to announce its standard for the amount of hardship necessary for an employer to establish the undue hardship defense to Title VII religious accommodation cases. The U.S. Supreme Court had held in 2023 that showing only more than a de minimis cost was insufficient to show undue hardship. But the Supreme Court did not specify how much more of a cost would be sufficient to show hardship. The Ninth Circuit decided that an employer establishes the undue hardship defense if the burden is substantial in the overall context of an employer’s business.
The Ninth Circuit analyzed the three types of risks that could occur if Legacy were to accommodate the employees’ vaccine exemption requests: 1) an employee becomes ill and creates a staffing issue; 2) other employees become infected; and 3) the transmission risk affects Legacy’s patients. Legacy’s expert opined that alternative safety protocols, such as masking, other personal protective equipment, and frequent testing, were all insufficient replacements for vaccination. Taken together the Ninth Circuit agreed these three risks created a substantial burden on Legacy’s business of providing health care.
The employees argued that religiously-affiliated hospitals had granted vaccine accommodation requests. The Ninth Circuit reiterated that the inquiry centers on the particular employer at issue, and Legacy did not have a religious affiliation. The employees also argued that Legacy relied on pre-vaccine data to support its risk analysis, while post-vaccine data would have supported their request for a vaccine exemption. The Ninth Circuit found that an employer is entitled to rely on the data available at the time it makes a religious accommodation decision. The employees could not point to any contemporary data that supported their claims.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s granting of Legacy’s motion for summary judgment.
Williams et al v. Legacy Health, No. 24-5977 (9th Cir. May 6, 2026).