Antoine v. First Student, Inc.

• Decision Date: 10 April 2013
• Docket Number: No. 11–31126.,11–31126.
• Citation: 713 F.3d 824
• Parties: Robert E. ANTOINE, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. FIRST STUDENT, INC., Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

713 F.3d 824

Robert E. ANTOINE, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.FIRST STUDENT, INC., Defendant–Appellee.

No. 11–31126.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 10, 2013.

Todd Robert McFarland, Associate General Counsel, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Office of General Counsel, Silver Spring, MD, Victor Roma Farrugia, New Orleans, LA, Charles Melvin Kester, Kester Law Firm, Fayetteville, AR, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Magdalen Blessey Bickford, Jackson Lewis, L.L.P., New Orleans, LA, for Defendant–Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Before STEWART, Chief Judge, and DeMOSS and GRAVES, Circuit Judges.

CARL E. STEWART, Chief Judge:

In an action for a religious observance accommodation under Title VII, Plaintiff–Appellant Robert Antoine appeals from the district court's ruling on summary judgment that Antoine's employer, Defendant–Appellee First Student, Inc. (“First Student”), reasonably accommodated his religion. We VACATE and REMAND for further proceedings.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY ¹

Antoine has been a member of the Seventh-day Adventist faith for over thirty years. Seventh-day Adventists observe the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, and they emphasize the importance of refraining from secular work during this time. While employed with First Student, Antoine held the leadership position of First Elder in his local congregation.

Antoine first worked for First Student as a bus driver for the Orleans Parish area during the 2008–2009 school year. During his first period of employment with First Student, Antoine never experienced a conflict with his religious observance of the Sabbath since he always completed his afternoon route on Fridays before sundown.

On June 23, 2009, Antoine applied to be a bus driver for First Student in the Jefferson Parish School District (“JPSD”) for the 2009–2010 school year. First Student employee, Ella Cade, interviewed Antoine on July 1, 2009. Cade used a “Driver Interview Guide” form to structure and record her notes of the interview. The parties dispute the extent to which Antoine informed First Student of his schedule restrictions based on his religion when he applied to be a bus driver. Antoine informed First Student that he was able to work between 5:00 AM and 6:00 PM during the week, but not on weekends. Antoine also asserts that he discussed his religion and the limitations that it imposed on his availability on the Sabbath during the interview, although this issue was not a significant topic at the time of the interview from Antoine's perspective. Cade's deposition testimony indicated that she and Antoine “may have” discussed Antoine's religion but it was not a significant concern because First Student does not have work on weekends. Antoine did not anticipate any conflict between his work schedule and his religion when he began working for JPSD, given his prior experience working for First Student in Orleans Parish. First Student hired Antoine on July 23, 2009.

The relationship between First Student and its employees was governed by a Collective Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”) that First Student entered into with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 270. According to the CBA, bus drivers bid on available routes at the beginning of the year and were awarded routes based on seniority. If a route remained unassigned after this bidding process, the route would be assigned to drivers who had not yet been assigned a route in reverse order of seniority. Those drivers who did not receive a route through the bidding process became “bench drivers.” First Student called on bench drivers when the company needed a substitute driver.

During the relevant time period, Antoine was ranked number 114 out of 115 drivers on First Student's seniority list. Due to his lack of seniority, Antoine did not receive a route at the beginning of the 2009–2010 school year, and thus became a bench driver. An existing route—Route FS651—then became available on September 11, 2009. Antoine was assigned FS651, which consisted of three different schools—Ella C. Pittman Elementary School, Woodmere Elementary School, and St. Ville Academy for High School Preparation (“St. Ville”). Antoine typically completed his route, ending with St. Ville, around 5:40 PM each day. At the time he was assigned this route, Antoine did not inform First Student that he would be unable to complete his Friday shift on certain days after sundown.

During part of the school year, the requirements of Route FS651 conflicted with Antoine's religious beliefs. Once Daylight Savings Time ended on November 1, 2009, sunsets started occurring before Antoine's shift ended on Fridays. Specifically, sundown occurred before Antoine would have been able to complete his route between November 6, 2009 and January 29, 2010. For this reason, Antoine would have been unable to complete Route FS651 on eight Fridays, not including days when school was not in session.

On Friday, October 30, 2009, Antoine realized that the impending end of Daylight Savings Time would conflict with his observance of the Sabbath. Antoine thus informed First Student that he would not be able to complete his Friday afternoon shifts from November through January. He first informed his dispatcher, Candace Astorga, of the impending conflict, and she told Antoine that she would need to speak with Ed Franklin, First Student's contract manager with the JPSD and Antoine's supervisor. Antoine also told a second dispatcher, Nadia Phillips, about the upcoming conflict. Phillips told Antoine that she could allow a substitute driver for his route so long as she received approval from Franklin.

On Monday, November 2, 2009, Antoine met with Franklin to describe the nature of his religious conflict. Specifically, Antoine told Franklin that he was a Seventh-day Adventist and since Daylight Savings Time had ended the day before, on November 1, 2009, he would be unable to drive his third route on Friday afternoons because it conflicted with the Sabbath.

Also on November 2, Franklin emailed Danny Guerdon, a Human Resources Manager at First Student, stating as follows:

We have a notice from Employee Robert Antoine that he is not able to work on Friday PM because of his religion. He is a 7th day Advantage [sic]. I was not aware of this when he was hired; I need to know how do [sic] handle this? Where I'm sitting I can't allow this because this is a Monday thru Friday job. Please advise me on the situation.

Franklin's email prompted a series of correspondence among different Human Resources managers about Antoine's asserted need for an accommodation and the company's duty to accommodate.

Antoine and Franklin met again the morning of Friday, November 6, 2009. At this meeting, Franklin instructed Antoine that if Antoine could not complete all three of his routes on Friday afternoons, then he should stay home and not come to work that afternoon. Franklin also gave Antoine a warning letter for not driving his routes later that afternoon. Antoine asserts that the resolution of the November 6 meeting was that Franklin and the dispatchers would find a replacement driver for Antoine. Franklin and First Student assert, however, that Franklin told Antoine to find a replacement on his own. Judith Jackson, a union shop steward,² was present at both the November 2 and November 6 meetings.

The CBA contains a provision relating to voluntary route changes. This provision provides in full:

Section 12—Voluntary Route Changes

Drivers and Monitors shall select routes by seniority. There shall be no swapping of routes. A driver or monitor that wishes to vacate his/her route will have the route posted by the Employer and it will be advertised for three (3) days and assigned to the senior driver picking the route.

The position vacated by the picking driver or monitor will be assigned to the driver or monitor that caused the vacancy. Only these two (2) drivers or monitors will be involved.

Due to the provision stating “[t]here shall be no swapping of routes,” First Student asserts that part of its accommodation of Antoine was that it sought a “side agreement” or Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with the local union that would have permitted a voluntary shift swap for Antoine. Antoine contends, however, that “First Student never made any effort to negotiate the required local MOU.”

Neither First Student nor Antoine secured a volunteer to swap shifts with Antoine. Franklin never attempted to arrange an exchange of shifts, and insists that it was Antoine's responsibility to find a shift swap. Meanwhile, Antoine disputes that it was his responsibility to find a replacement, arguing instead that it was First Student who offered to arrange the swap. Antoine still spoke to “a big group of drivers,” including a group of bench drivers, during which time he expressed his disbelief that First Student could not find anyone to take his route.³ Another driver, Moneik Lee, approached Antoine and volunteered to take some of his Friday afternoon routes after overhearing Antoine speak to a group of drivers about his plight. Lee offered to drive Antoine's assigned students home from St. Ville, the third of Antoine's routes, on one or two Fridays. When Antoine and Lee approached Franklin about the potential substitute, Franklin told Lee that Lee could take the St. Ville portion of Antoine's route only if Lee swapped routes with Antoine for the whole week. Lee declined to do so.

Antoine asked another driver, Percy Washington, about picking up all of Antoine's students from St. Ville, in case Lee was unable to do so. Antoine asked Washington because Washington picked up a different group of children from St. Ville at the same time as Antoine, and Antoine assumed Washington simply could take Antoine's children on Washington's bus instead. While it is unclear from the record exactly what Washington's response was, it appears...