Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc.

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
14-86	10th Cir.	Feb 25, 2015 Tr.Aud.	Jun 1, 2015	8-1	Scalia	OT 2014

Holding: To prevail in a disparate-treatment claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an applicant need show only that his need for an accommodation was a motivating factor in the employer’s decision, not that the employer actually knew of his need.

Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 8-1, in an opinion by Justice Scalia on June 1, 2015. Justice Alito filed an opinion concurring in the judgement. Justice Thomas filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

SCOTUSblog Coverage

Victory for religious rights in the workplace: In Plain English (Amy Howe)
A “view” from the Courtroom: Elonis and other June 1 decisions (Mark Walsh)
Opinion analysis: New shield against religious bias (Lyle Denniston)
Looking for a workable rule: Today's argument in Plain English (Amy Howe)
Argument analysis: Plucking simplicity out of complexity (Lyle Denniston)
Court to consider accommodations for religiously devout employees: In Plain English (Amy Howe)
Argument preview: Faith and a workplace dress code (Lyle Denniston)
Petition of the day (Maureen Johnston)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
May 16 2014	Application (13A1139) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from May 27, 2014 to June 26, 2014, submitted to Justice Sotomayor.
May 19 2014	Application (13A1139) granted by Justice Sotomayor extending the time to file until June 26, 2014.
Jun 16 2014	Application (13A1139) to extend further the time from June 26, 2014 to July 25, 2014, submitted to Justice Sotomayor.
Jun 17 2014	Application (13A1139) granted by Justice Sotomayor extending the time to file until July 25, 2014.
Jul 25 2014	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due August 27, 2014)
Aug 27 2014	Brief amici curiae of Religious Organizations filed.
Aug 27 2014	Brief of respondent Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc. in opposition filed.
Sep 10 2014	Reply of petitioner Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed.
Sep 10 2014	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of September 29, 2014.
Oct 2 2014	Petition GRANTED.
Oct 9 2014	The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including November 26, 2014.
Oct 9 2014	The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including January 15, 2015.
Nov 17 2014	Order further extending time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits to and including December 3, 2014.
Nov 17 2014	Order further extending time to file respondent's brief on the merits to and including January 21, 2015.
Dec 3 2014	Joint appendix filed. (Statement of costs filed.)
Dec 3 2014	Brief of petitioner Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed.
Dec 9 2014	Brief amicus curiae of Umme-Hani Khan filed.
Dec 10 2014	Brief amicus curiae of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed.
Dec 10 2014	Brief amici curiae of American Jewish Committee, et al. filed.
Dec 10 2014	Brief amicus curiae of American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, et al. filed.
Dec 10 2014	Brief amici curiae of National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs, et al. filed.
Dec 10 2014	Brief amicus curiae of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. filed.
Dec 10 2014	Brief amici curiae of Fifteen Religious and Civil Rights Organizations filed.
Dec 10 2014	Brief amici curiae of Arizona, et al. filed.
Dec 10 2014	Brief amicus curiae of The Council on American-Islamic Relations filed.
Dec 22 2014	SET FOR ARGUMENT ON Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Dec 22 2014	Record requested from U.S.C.A. 10th Circuit.
Dec 30 2014	Record received from U.S.C.A. 10th Circuit. The record is electronic and located on PACER, also received 1-Box of pleadings in the case.
Jan 7 2015	CIRCULATED.
Jan 21 2015	Brief of respondent Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc. filed. (Distributed)
Jan 28 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Equal Employment Advisory Council filed. (Distributed)
Jan 28 2015	Brief amici curiae of Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Jan 28 2015	Brief amici curiae of The National Conference of State Legislatures, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Jan 28 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Cato Institute filed. (Distributed)
Feb 18 2015	Reply of petitioner Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed. (Distributed)
Feb 25 2015	Argued. For petitioner: Ian H. Gershengorn, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. For respondent: Shay Dvoretzky, Washington, D. C.
Jun 1 2015	Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Jul 6 2015	JUDGMENT ISSUED.
Jul 21 2015	Record from U.S.C.A. 10th Circuit has been returned.

Featured Posts

Challengers urge justices to dismiss census case after district court ruling (Updated) – Amy Howe

Reargument analysis: Justices seek a “middle position” in takings litigation case – Miriam Seifter

Argument analysis: Justices have strong views about removal of class actions – Ronald Mann
Email Digest Sign-Up
Receive a daily email digest from Feedburner by entering your email.
Merits Case Pages and Archives

Archives

or

This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court will release orders from the January 18 conference on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. There is a possibility of opinions on Tuesday at 10 a.m.
The justices will meet next for their February 15 conference.
The calendar for the February sitting, which will begin on Tuesday, February 19, is available on the Supreme Court's website.
Recent Decisions
- New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira A court should determine whether the Federal Arbitration Act’s Section 1 exclusion for disputes involving the “contracts of employment” of certain transportation workers applies before ordering arbitration; here, truck driver Dominic Oliveira’s independent contractor operating agreement with New Prime Inc. falls within that exception.
- Stokeling v. United States The Armed Career Criminal Act’s elements clause encompasses a robbery offense that, like Florida’s law, requires the criminal to overcome the victim’s resistance.
- Culbertson v. Berryhill The Social Security Act’s fee cap of 25 percent of past-due benefits imposed on attorneys who successfully represent Title II benefit claimants in court proceedings applies only to fees for court representation and not to aggregate fees for both court and agency representation.
- Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc. The “wholly groundless” exception to the general rule that courts must enforce contracts that delegate threshold arbitrability questions to an arbitrator, not a court, is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act and Supreme Court precedent.
- City of Escondido, California v. Emmons The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit failed to conduct the analysis required by Supreme Court precedents in determining whether two Escondido police officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
- Shoop v. Hill Because Danny Hill’s intellectual disability claim must be evaluated based solely on holdings of the Supreme Court that were clearly established at the time the state-court decisions were rendered, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s reliance on Moore v. Texas -- which was handed down much later -- was plainly improper.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda Whether the prohibition in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), against employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” encompasses discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation.
- Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia Whether discrimination against an employee because of sexual orientation constitutes prohibited employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” within the meaning of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
More Petitions »
Major Cases
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Department of Commerce v. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
  Whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker—including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking Executive Branch officials—when there is no evidence that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Special Features
Statistical Snapshot

Cases argued 43

Cases decided 9

Summary reversals 2

Merits cases granted to date 73

see all »
Live Blog Archives
See all
Twitter Feed

Tweets by @SCOTUSblog

Full Calendar Submit Event

Jan. 2019

Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
		1 Holiday	2	3	4 Conference	5
6	7 Orders MERCK SHARP & DOHME CORP. V. ALBRECHT (17-290) OBDUSKEY V. MCCARTHY & HOLTHUS LLP (17-1307)	8 HERRERA V. WYOMING (17-532) FOURTH ESTATE PUBLIC BENEFIT CORP. V. WALL-STREET.COM, LLC (17-571) Opinions	9 FRANCHISE TAX BOARD OF CALIFORNIA V. HYATT (17-1299)	10	11 Conference	12
13	14 Orders THACKER V. TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY (17-1201) RIMINI STREET INC. V. ORACLE USA INC. (17-1625)	15 HOME DEPOT U.S.A. INC. V. JACKSON (17-1471) AZAR V. ALLINA HEALTH SERVICES (17-1484) Opinions	16 KNICK V. TOWNSHIP OF SCOTT, PENNSYLVANIA (17-647) TENNESSEE WINE AND SPIRITS RETAILERS ASSOCIATION V. BLAIR (18-96)	17	18 Conference	19
20	21 Holiday	22 Orders Opinions	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Orders/Opinions
Arguments
Conferences

Events
Holidays
Multiple

Download our App in the Apple Store
First Mondays see all
Videos see all

Justice Sotomayor at Harvard

On November 13, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and Judge Susan Carney of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit presided over the final round of the 2018 Ames Moot Court Competition at Harvard Law School.

Peabody Award
Awarded the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media.
Sigma Delta Chi
Awarded the Sigma Delta Chi deadline reporting award for online coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
National Press Club Award
Awarded the National Press Club's Breaking News Award for coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
Silver Gavel Award
Awarded the Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for fostering the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.
American Gavel Award
Awarded the American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting About the Judiciary to recognize the highest standards of reporting about courts and the justice system.
Webby Award
Awarded the Webby Award for excellence on the internet.

Cases argued	43
Cases decided	9
Summary reversals	2
Merits cases granted to date	73

Editor's Note :

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc.

SCOTUSblog Coverage

Featured Posts

Challengers urge justices to dismiss census case after district court ruling (Updated) – Amy Howe

Reargument analysis: Justices seek a “middle position” in takings litigation case – Miriam Seifter

Argument analysis: Justices have strong views about removal of class actions – Ronald Mann

Email Digest Sign-Up

Merits Case Pages and Archives

Recent Decisions

Current Relists

Conference of January 18, 2019

Major Cases

Recent Special Features

Live Blog Archives

Jan. 2019

Download our App in the Apple Store

First Mondays see all

Videos see all

Peabody Award

Sigma Delta Chi

National Press Club Award

Silver Gavel Award

American Gavel Award

Webby Award