A woman, Marie Jean Pierre, age 60, has been awarded $21.5 million as compensation after she was forced to work on Sundays as a dishwasher at Park Hotels and Resorts.
Pierre started working at the hotel in 2006. She told her employer that she would not be able to work on Sundays because she was a missionary for the Soldiers of Christ Church, report The Washington Post.
"I love God. No work on Sundays because Sunday I honour God", said Pierre, the Haitian immigrant.
In the hotel, her religious beliefs were respected and she was allowed to have Sundays off . However, there was a turn around in October 2015, after a kitchen manager insisted that she must work on Sundays.
Pierre made her pastor to write a letter to the manager stating that it would be a violation of her religious beliefs to do secular work on Sundays, but the manager threw it away. This made Pierre to ask co-workers to switch shifts with her since she wanted to take Sundays off.
This lasted until March 2016, when Pierre's employment "was terminated for alleged misconduct, negligence, and 'unexcused absences'", the complaint stated.
However, Pierre filed a lawsuit against Pack Hotels and Resorts Inc. of Tysons, Va, alleging that the hotel had violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans employment discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin.
Pierre's attorney, Marc Brumer said the hotel had an obligation to reasonably accommodate their employees' religious beliefs.
"Money wasn't the issue it was riding on", Brumer told The Washington Post in a phone interview. "My argument to the jury was, "We have to send a message to the Corporations. They have no heart. They'ar businesses...Park Hotels and Resorts is a billion-dollars Corporation. A million dollars wouldn't be right. I mean, what would be the number that would change the world?".
Hence, the Federal jury decided what that number would be, and awarded Pierre $21.5 million. "For them, it wasn't really money. It was trying to right the wrong", Brumer said. "It's just a great day for religious freedoms and protection of workers".
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