This just in from the Austin American-Statesman.
Bus driver who refused to take women to Planned Parenthood gets $21K in
settlementhttp://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/courts/entries/2011/04/25/driver_who_refused_to_bring_wo.html
By Steven
In a word, extortion.
Marci
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-Original Message-
From: Sanford Levinson slevin...@law.utexas.edu
Sender: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:41:46
To: Law Religion issues for Law Academicsreligionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
Art may well be right about insurance counsel.
But to the merits-- Even under TRFRA--where is the substantial burden
here? The vast majority of Planned Parenthood's services have nothing to do
with abortion, no one forced him to become a bus driver, and he has no
religious belief
I am curious whether there will be any public outrage about this, in the way
that I suspect there would be if, say, the city paid out $21,500 (in order
simply to avoid litigation that could undoubtedly be won) to an atheist who
made an equally dubious claim. (I confess I see no circumstances
I’m not sure why TRFRA is the likeliest claim; I would think
that the strongest claim would be a Title VII one. Nor does the “you knew the
job required this when you took it” defense work for Title VII; maybe it
should, but that’s not the way the law stands now.
What exactly does settlement or extortion? mean in this
context? (I'm not saying there can't be such a distinction, but I'm just
curious what it is.) Is it that the lawsuit was a sure loser? (If so, do we
know whether it was? For instance, was another driver available, so
If I’m reading the facts correctly, the plaintiff lost his job. If the
plaintiff turned down the dispatch as soon as he received it, and if the
Transportation System other drivers available for dispatch (so that it easily
could have dispatched a different driver to take the passengers to the
Eugene-- you are exaggerating the impact of the undue hardship/reasonable
accommodation requirement. It can't be that the transportation authority
must show there were no other drivers available. Moreover, while I
understand how a hospital could schedule a nurse not to be involved in
On the question whether the driver knew why the passengers were going to
Planned Parenthood, I believe a Quaker would refuse to fire a rifle at enemy
lines, even if he were accurately assured that there was only a .01% chance
that his bullet would hit a person.
Art
On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 7:15
That is actually inaccurate. The vast majority of what Planned Parenthood
does involves day-to-day gyn care for poor women, as well as contraceptive
counseling. A small percentage involves abortion.
In any event, I was not suggesting that the bus driver should ask, but
rather that no
I think Marci is misunderstanding the facts. As I read the news clip, this
driver was specifically dispatched to take these passengers to Planned
Parenthood. He was not driving a bus route.
Art Spitzer
On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 7:24 PM, hamilto...@aol.com wrote:
That is actually inaccurate.
OK, would a Quaker take a job assembling M-1 rifles, even if accurately
assured that fewer than 1 in 1000 ever fires a shot that hits a person?
Art
On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 7:30 PM, Sanford Levinson
slevin...@law.utexas.eduwrote:
I wonder why Mark believes that “a reasonably high percentage
I'm not following the math. Assume 1% of dispatches are to the hospital.
Our religious driver would then have no problem doing 99% of his job.
Surely that qualifies as most of what the driver would be required to do.
Art
On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Brownstein, Alan
I'm willing to agree, as with Thomas, that the Quaker, upon discovering the
baleful nature of his employment, could ask for reassignment and, upon being
fired, get unemployment compensation from the state. Perhaps that should be
true of the bus driver as well. But I am still repelled by the
In response to Marci:
There is a high enough percentage that PP does, as I understand it, several
hundred thousand abortions a year. What is a reasonably high percentage also
depends to some extent on the purpose for which you ask the question; if I
stand on a building’s roof with my back to
OK. Should a UPS driver, who knows that (s)he is delivering a package
containing chemicals to be used in capital punishment, have a protected right
to refuse to make the delivery? Should UPS be expected to “settle” for (only)
$21,500 upon reminding its drivers that they are not being hired to
The math in my example is that a lot more people will want rides to the local
hospital than to Planned Parenthood and there will often be far greater need
for them to get there quickly. (Are you seriously arguing that we should
accommodate the beliefs of a cab driver who refuses to take any
No, I am not saying that a UPS driver should have such a right simpliciter. But
if a UPS truck is being specially dispatched to the prison to deliver the
chemicals, and if there are several drivers available, so that there will be
little if any delay or inconvenience in having one of the other
I was responding only to your language about an employee being able to do
most of his or her job. This driver surely was able to do .999% of his
job. I agree that there's a line somewhere. And wherever it is, I think it
should be in the same place for a bus driver whose views we find picky as
If the facts are as Mark describes, I would be (provisionally) sympathetic.
But I suspect such fact situations are few and far between. I take it that he
agrees that the UPS drive would be out of luck if the delivery were part of the
“regular daily assignment.”
sandy
From:
Sorry, I meant to say 99.9% not .999%.
On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:13 PM, Arthur Spitzer artspit...@gmail.comwrote:
I was responding only to your language about an employee being able to do
most of his or her job. This driver surely was able to do .999% of his
job. I agree that there's a line
Yes, I agree with Sandy, unless there are several drivers each of whom is
perfectly capable of handling the others’ routes (trading routes) without
inconvenience, in which case it seems that there is no real reason to deny the
accommodation for the conscientious opponent of the death penalty.
So why don't we try to ascertain the facts? Took me about 20 seconds to
find the complaint online:
http://www.aclj.org/media/pdf/Graning-DCT-FILED-Doc-1-Complaint-20100714.pdf
I dont know whether there were further pleadings, or what the bus service's
defense might have been, but from the looks
I would ask the city attorney whether there is generally another
driver to whom such rare requests could be referred. If there is, then the
case would be much like the nurse cases, as well as the postal worker / draft
registration cases (plus I suspect quite a few other such
This case involved, I think, not a bus route driver, but a sort
of bus-driver-as-taxi service. In that situation, there might often be other
drivers who could be dispatched (depending on the total number of drivers in
the department and depending on how many are generally
Without the snigger quotes, this happens in nearly all fee-shifting cases,
which includes nearly all civil rights cases -- not just religious civil rights
cases. Attorneys take these cases for the fee the court ultimately awards. And
that was what Congress expected and hoped for when it
In most litigation by employees, or ex-employees, or passengers against this
transit system, It's likely that the transit system has the strong upper
hand by way of its much deeper pocket (to mix metaphors wildly). So I'm not
shedding tears over its unwillingness to fight this case. It was a
Well, Marci, if his claim is not simply that he does not believe women
should wear bathing suits, but is more broadly that if he drives women to
Macy's it will create a religious hardship, then his religious request for
an exemption must be honored under title VII unless doing so would create an
Quotation marks that seem to suggest that the word or phrase within the
quotation marks is being misused (what I thought was happening here), or that
the writer is for whatever reason a little embarrassed to be using the phrase.
I'm sorry if I misread you.
On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:21:26 -0400
Marty-- My question for Mark was whether there was any difference between
the two bus drivers. I think not, and believe the undue hardship
standard is a low bar that protects neither one, as you indicate. So nothing
unusual or notable on my end.
Marci
In a message dated 4/25/2011
In response to Marci: There certainly are differences between the bus driver
who asks not to be dispatched to take passengers to Planned Parenthood and the
bus driver who asks not to be dispatched to a department store that sells
bathing suits. I have time now to discuss one of them and to
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