2019 CORPORATE LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT COUNSEL EXCLUSIVE

OGLETREE, DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART, P.C. 29-1

FINDING A WIN-WIN

RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION REQUESTS

IN THE WORKPLACE

Deena Bailey – Cargill Meat Solutions

Ruthie L. Goodboe – Ogletree Deakins (Detroit (Metro)/Pittsburgh)

Chris R. Pace – Ogletree Deakins (Kansas City)

2019 CORPORATE LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT COUNSEL EXCLUSIVE

OGLETREE, DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART, P.C. 29-2

In 2015, the Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated decision in EEOC v.

Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 135 S.Ct. 2028 (2015). Abercrombie and Fitch had a long-

standing policy prohibiting employees from wearing “caps” while working in its stores. When a

head scarf-wearing Muslim woman sought a position in one of its stores, managers suspected

that she was a Muslim who was required to wear that scarf at work, concluded that doing so

violated the no-cap policy, and denied her the position. EEOC sued. The district court granted

summary judgment to the EEOC against the company and, after trial, awarded $20,000 to the

plaintiff. The Tenth Circuit reversed, holding that, while the store may have suspected that the

plaintiff was a Muslim who would not take off her scarf, to state a claim for failure to

accommodate, the employer must know that an employee has a religious objection to an

employer policy. The Supreme Court granted the EEOC’s cert petition on the question of

whether an employer must be informed of a need for a reasonable accommodation for a plaintiff

to sustain a Title VII claim.

The Supreme Court held that actual knowledge of such a requirement is unnecessary:

Abercrombie’s primary argument is that an applicant cannot show disparate

treatment without first showing that an employer has "actual knowledge" of the

applicant's need for an accommodation. We disagree. Instead, an applicant need

only show that his need for an accommodation was a motivating factor in the

employer's decision.

135 S. Ct. at 2032. Notably, though, the Court did not reach the question of whether granting the

(presumed) need for the accommodation of an exception to Abercrombie’s no-cap policy caused

the employer an undue burden. Instead, it focused solely on the question of the level of

knowledge is necessary to produce evidence that a need for a religious accommodation

motivated an employment decision.

In the wake of Abercrombie & Fitch, the employer community loudly wondered whether

it now had a duty to inquire about whether an employee or applicant had a need for a religious

accommodation. Doing so, employers mused, runs counter to long-standing wisdom that it is

better not to ask an employee in a protected class whether she may need some type of

accommodation unless the employee addresses the subject first. Perhaps because of this anxiety,

both advocates and commentators have brought new focus to one of the more vexing and

delicate issues facing employers: how to balance employee religious practices and employer

work requirements.

This paper summarizes and comments upon recent cases that have addressed the need for

employee accommodations in three specific areas: the need of Muslims to take intra-shift breaks

to participate in Islamic prayer; accommodating the need of “Sabbatarians” to refrain from work

on the Sabbath; and the application of neutral appearance standards to employees with

conflicting religious beliefs.

Background

First, some important context. None of the recent decisions purports to alter entrenched

notions that the duty to accommodate employee religious beliefs is not absolute. “Religion does

2019 CORPORATE LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT COUNSEL EXCLUSIVE

OGLETREE, DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART, P.C. 29-3

not exist in a vacuum in the workplace,” but “coexists, both with intensely secular arrangements

such as collective bargaining agreements and with the intensely secular pressures of the

marketplace.” EEOC v. Firestone Fibers & Textiles Co., 515 F.3d 307, 313 (4th Cir. 2008). In

recognition of this balance, Title VII does “not impose a duty on the employer to accommodate

at all costs.” Ansonia Bd. Of Educ. V. Philbrook, 479 U.S. 60, 70 (1986).

To require an employer to bear more than a de minimis cost is an undue hardship. See,

e.g., Buonanno v. AT&T Broadband LLC, 313 F. Supp. 2d 1069, 1081 (D. Colo. 2004). Any cost

in terms of efficiency or wage expenditure is more than de minimis. Lee v. ABF Freight Sys.,

Inc., 22 F.3d 1019, 1023 (10th Cir. 1994). Likewise, any loss in production that results from a

worker being unavailable due to a religious conflict can amount to an undue hardship, EEOC v.

JBS USA, LLC, 115 F. Supp. 3d 1203 (D. Colo. 2015), and an accommodation that places an

imposition on other employees can be more than a de minimis burden. Lee, 22 F.3d at 1023.

While the EEOC aggressively has sought to expand the law regarding religious

accommodation in recent years, it continues to acknowledge that an employer may establish an

accommodation

not only [by pointing to] direct monetary costs but also the burden on the conduct

of the employer’s business. For example, courts have found undue hardship

where the accommodation diminishes efficiency in other jobs, infringes on other

employees’ job rights or benefits, impairs workplace safety, or causes co-workers

to carry the accommodated employee’s share of potentially hazardous or

burdensome work. Whether the proposed accommodation conflicts with another

law will also be considered.

EEOC Compliance Manual, which can be accessed at http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html.

Nor is an employer required to accommodate an employee in “exactly the way the

employee would like to be accommodated.” Pinsker v. Joint Dist. No. 28J of Adams &

Arapahoe Cntys., 735 F.2d 388, 390-91 (10th Cir. 1984). And accommodations need not be

“perfect” to comply with Title VII. See EEOC v. JBS USA, LLC, 2015 WL 4387882, *21 (D.

Colo. 2015) (noting EEOC’s litigation position that an employer need not offer a “perfect

accommodation for every Muslim employee”).

PRAYER ACCOMMODATION

These cases typically arise in the context of Muslim employees who seek to be released

from work for short periods of time to participate in Islamic prayers that must occur at specific

points throughout the day. For employers in production and assembly line environments, the

challenge has been particularly acute: how does an employer allow employees to leave a moving

assembly line without impacting quality, production, or safety? This tension has generated

several lawsuits over the last few years, typified by EEOC v. JBS USA, LLC, 339 F.Supp. 3d

1135 (D. Colo. 2018).

JBS operated a beef processing facility in Colorado that employed a large number of

Muslim employees on its (de)assembly line. When the Islamic evening prayer conflicted with

2019 CORPORATE LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT COUNSEL EXCLUSIVE

OGLETREE, DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART, P.C. 29-4

the scheduled evening shift, JBS sought to accommodate its Islamic employees’ need for prayer

by moving the evening meal times to 7:30pm and 8pm rather than the standard 9:15. While this

change satisfied most Muslim employees, many non-Muslim employers objected to the move.

The change in mealtime eventually led to unrest among the employees and a walkout of Muslim

employees, a small number of whom were suspended and then terminated for failure to return to

work.

Multiple EEOC charges and protracted litigation followed. After a 17-day bench trial, on

the EEOC’s claim that JBS had engaged in a pattern and practice of retaliation against Muslims

by denying them accommodations and terminating them for failure to return to work after the

walk out, the court entered judgment in favor of JBS. In its 60 page Findings of Fact and

Conclusions of Law, the court reached several notable conclusions.

“Freestanding” accommodation claims. Citing the Supreme Court’s statement in

Abercrombie & Fitch that Title VII provided only two causes of action for religious

discrimination—disparate treatment and disparate impact—the court refused the EEOC’s

suggestion that a failure to accommodate is actionable regardless of whether it is tied to an

adverse employment action.

Interactive process and its limits. Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Ansonia Bd. Of

Ed. vs. Philbrook, 479 US 60 (1986), courts have recognized that Title VII imposed an

obligation of “bilateral cooperation” on both employers and employees “in the search for an

acceptable reconciliation of the needs of the employee’s religion and the exigencies of the

employer’s business.” Id. at 69 (citations omitted). However, this interactive process is not

unlimited. An employer meets its obligation by providing any reasonable accommodation.

Once that occurs, it does not have a continuing obligation to confer to seek another

accommodation that the employee might prefer. JBS, 339 F. Supp. 2d at 1178-79.

“Undue burden.” JBS is a good example of an employer that prevailed on an undue

burden defense without an express articulation of the economic costs imposed by the Plaintiffs’

proposed accommodation. The court found that the employees’ preferred accommodation of

permanently moving the evening meal to align with Islamic prayer would have imposed an

undue burden on JBS because shifting the meal time nearly two hours earlier would make

employees less productive because, without a mid-shift break, they would become more tired

and hungry by the end of their shift. The court also concluded that moving the meal period to

coordinate with the time of Islamic evening prayer, which aligned with sunset, would cause the

mealtime to shift throughout the year, thereby negatively impacting employee morale.

Notably, though, the court found that JBS had not carried its burden to show that an

additional accommodation proposed by the EEOC—granting Muslim employees unscheduled

breaks away from the production line to pray—would result in an undue burden on the employer

because JBS managers testified that doing so would not negatively impact production.

JBS is a mixed bag for employers. Positively, the decision underscores the fact that

undue burdens need not be economic in nature: a well-demonstrated impact on employee morale

and fatigue is enough. The decision also constitutes another nail in the coffin of the EEOC’s

theory that a failure to accommodate can create liability even when not tied to an adverse

2019 CORPORATE LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT COUNSEL EXCLUSIVE

OGLETREE, DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART, P.C. 29-5

employment action. On the other hand, the case serves as a warning for employers who seek to

rely on a loss of production or other economic impacts to support a claim of undue hardship. To

safely do so, an employer must insure that its managers are aware of and, preferably, quantify

any such loss.

SABBATARIANS

Some religions, particularly adherents of the Seventh Day Adventist faith, hold that

working on the Sabbath is a violation of the tenants of the faith. For those employers that require

employees to work on the weekend, balancing the need of an employee to adhere to the tenants

of her faith with the interest of the employer in fully staffing weekend shifts can be very

challenging. Over the last several years, both the EEOC and adherents of the Seventh Day

Adventist faith have become more aggressive in challenging employer policies, filing several

high-profile lawsuits. The church itself has entered into the fray, itself filing nearly 20 lawsuits

against employers in the last few years. Both Plaintiffs and the EEOC have attempted to expand

existing law, as exemplified below.

EEOC v. N. Mem. Health Care, 908 F.3d 1098 (8th Cir. 2018).

In this case, the EEOC dressed up its pre-Abercrombie position that Title VII created a

freestanding obligation on the part of employers to accommodate religious restrictions—a

position rejected by Abercrombie—under the guise of a retaliation case. But the Eighth Circuit

didn’t buy it.

In this case, Emily Sure-Ondara, a nurse and Seventh Day Adventist, was encouraged to

apply for the Advanced Beginner Residency Program offered at North Memorial in Minnesota.

During the hiring process, Sure-Ondara was told that registered nurses working night shifts in the

hiring unit are required to work eight-hour shifts every other weekend under the terms

established by North Memorial’s collective bargaining agreement with the Minnesota Nurses

Association. At no time during the hiring process did Sure-Ondara disclose that her religion

would prevent her from working sundown on Fridays to sundown on Saturdays. Sure-Ondara

received and accepted a conditional offer, which contained the requirement to work the eight-

hour night shift every other weekend. It was not until she submitted her pre-employment

paperwork that she disclosed to the receptionist in the HR department that she needed to be

accommodated for her religious beliefs. An HR generalist told Sure-Ondara that because the

union agreement required work every other weekend, the hospital may have to offer her spot to

another candidate, and Sure-Ondara responded that she still wanted the job and would “make it

work” by finding a substitute for all her Friday night shifts or would come in herself in an

emergency life or death situation. Ultimately, the HR department, applying the hospital’s policy

to consider accommodation requests on a case-by-case basis, decided to rescind her offer

because they determined that it would not be possible for a newly-trained nurse in the Advanced

Beginner Program to consistently trade her Friday night shifts, and they were concerned that

Sure-Ondara would only come to work for what she considered to be emergencies. When

advised that the hospital would be unable to grant the accommodation, Sure-Ondara reiterated

that she would take the position without an accommodation. However, based on what the

hospital saw to be “conflicting statements” on her willingness to come in during her Sabbath, the

hospital removed her from the program and advised her it would be willing to consider her for

2019 CORPORATE LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT COUNSEL EXCLUSIVE

OGLETREE, DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART, P.C. 29-6

other positions. Sure-Ondara applied for other positions within the hospital without success, and

eventually was hired by a different hospital into a non-union position that accommodated her

religious needs. Sure-Ondara filed a charge upon which EEOC found “cause.” When conciliation

was unsuccessful, the EEOC sued.

Despite the fact that Sure-Ondara’s charge alleged both discrimination and retaliation,

EEOC did not sue for disparate treatment for failing to accommodate Sure-Ondara’s religious

beliefs. Instead, it claimed that Sure-Ondara’s request for an accommodation was inherently

protected activity and that an adverse employment outcome that flows from that protected

activity is inherently retaliatory. The Eighth Circuit rejected this assertion, noting that the

protected activity must also be oppositional to support a retaliation claim. Because an

employee’s mere request for an accommodation, followed by the employer’s consideration and

rejection of that request, is not oppositional, it does not support a retaliation claim.

Here, it appears the EEOC was too clever by half. During the charge stage, the hospital

produced evidence that, under the collective bargaining agreement, employees were obligated to

work every other weekend and that disregarding this requirement would cause an undue

hardship. Perhaps because this evidence was so strong, EEOC attempted to change the subject

by claiming that the failure to hire was retaliation, not discrimination, that was independently

unlawful. The Eighth Circuit deeming this position “sophistry.” In doing so, though, it issued

dicta that may be the most interesting thing about the case: it imported the ADA notion of

“essential job functions” into Title VII religious accommodation analysis.

If timely disclosed, North Memorial had a duty to attempt to accommodate her

religious practice. But North Memorial presented evidence that it is not feasible to

hire an untrained Advanced Beginner into a team providing Hospice and

Palliative Care to elderly patients if the applicant will not work the collectively

bargained schedule. There is no duty to accommodate an applicant or employee

by hiring or transferring her into a position when she is unwilling or unable to

perform one of its essential job functions . . . Whether that principle applied to her

was an issue to be resolved in a disparate treatment claim. . . .

908 F.3d at 1103-04. But the Circuit did not resolve this issue because EEOC had not asserted a

disparate treatment claim. Taken literally, this language suggests that the Circuit would allow an

employer to circumvent the question of whether the proposed accommodation caused an undue

hardship if it could show that the proposed accommodation conflicted with an essential function

of the job.

Tabura v. Kellogg USA, 880 F.3d 544 (10th Cir. 2018).

In Tabura, Kellogg enacted a shift system that required employees to work 26 Saturdays

a year. Kellogg allowed the Plaintiffs to use paid vacation, sick time, personal time or shift-

swapping, but eventually terminated both employees when they accumulated a sufficient number

of points under its’ no-fault attendance policy. Plaintiffs were represented by the Seventh Day

Adventists’ legal arm. Both parties moved for summary judgment. The district court denied

Plaintiffs’ motion, but granted Defendant’s motion finding that, as a matter of law, Kellogg had

granted Plaintiffs’ reasonable accommodation request and that granting further accommodation

2019 CORPORATE LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT COUNSEL EXCLUSIVE

OGLETREE, DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART, P.C. 29-7

would have resulted in undue hardship. In a mixed bag for the employer, the 10th Circuit

affirmed the district court’s denial of the Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, but reversed

the grant of summary judgment to Kellogg, finding:

First, the EEOC urged the 10th Circuit to adopt a per se rule requiring that, to be

reasonable, an accommodation must “eliminate” the conflict between the employee’s religious

practice and his work requirements. The Tenth Circuit declined to do so, instead noting that Title

VII only requires that an employer reasonably accommodate an employee’s religion, and

absolute rules conflict with what it sees as the intensely fact-specific determination of what is

“reasonable.”

Second, the EEOC urged the Circuit to hold that an employer must do more than simply

apply a neutral policy or practice, like allowing employees to trade shifts, to meet its obligation

to accommodate an employee’s religious practices. The court rejected this invitation, again

noting that whether an accommodation of allowing an employee to utilize neutral practices

constitutes a “reasonable” accommodation is intensely fact-specific and is likely to vary on a

case-by-case basis.

Third, the court noted that employees have an obligation to cooperate in a search for a

reasonable accommodation. But whether an employee cooperated is a question of fact that is not

amenable to summary judgment unless there are no genuine disputes on the question.

Finally, the court reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment on undue

hardship grounds, noting that the employer failed to move for summary judgment and, therefore,

the plaintiffs did not have sufficient opportunity to offer evidence on the question.

While Tabura is helpful in combatting the EEOC’s proposed innovations regarding the

duty to accommodate, it is undergird by the Tenth Circuit’s skepticism toward granting summary

judgment on the question of whether a proposed accommodation is “reasonable.” But Tabura left

intact existing law that proposed accommodations yielding more than a de minimis cost on an

employer constitute an undue hardship. Consequently, in the wake of Tabura, employers may be

better served by developing robust evidence to support an undue hardship defense, rather than

seeking summary judgment exclusively on the question of whether an accommodation is

reasonable.

APPEARANCE STANDARDS CASES

The question of how employers should react when a neutral employment policy conflicts

with a religious practice is one of the most unsettled areas of religious discrimination law, and

the EEOC is taking advantage of a lack of uniformity in the cases to attempt to make new law.

Over the last several years, EEOC has aggressively litigated cases involving employer

appearance standards (like banning facial hair or head ware) that it believes negatively impact

one or more religious minorities.1

1 While EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 135 S.Ct. 2028 (2015) (discussed above) is certainly the highest

profile “appearance standard” case, that case was decided on the narrow, technical grounds described above.

2019 CORPORATE LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT COUNSEL EXCLUSIVE

OGLETREE, DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART, P.C. 29-8

Camara v. Epps Air Serv., 292 F.Supp.3d 1314 (N.D. Ga. 2017). Epps Air Service has a

policy requiring its employees to wear a uniform and present a neat, professional appearance at

work. The plaintiff, a customer service representative, was required to have face-to-face

interaction with customers. When the plaintiff sought permission to wear her hijab at work, the

employer concluded that doing so would violate its uniform policy and could hurt its business

because some customers might have negative reactions to the hijab. Instead, plaintiff was

offered a non-frontline accounting position where she would not be required to wear a uniform

but where she would be paid the same pay, work the same hours, and receive the same benefits

as she would have as a customer service representative. The plaintiff refused the position,

believing it to be a “lower status” than the position she sought, and when she insisted upon

remaining in the customer service position, she was terminated and filed a failure to

accommodate action against the company.

The court entered summary judgment for the employer on the failure to accommodate

claim because it found the employer did provide a reasonable accommodation when it offered

the Plaintiff a non-uniform job with similar benefits. “Title VII does not require an employer ‘to

accommodate [the employee’s] need for face-to-face customer contact.’” 292 F. Supp. 3d at

1328 (Citing Birdi v. UAL Corp., No. 99 C 5576, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9864, 2002 WL

471999 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 26, 2002)). Rather, a transfer offer is reasonable accommodation “even if

the employee would earn less money in the new job,” and, a transfer offer is reasonable “even if

the employee might temporarily lose seniority privileges.” Id. Because the job offered to plaintiff

was reasonably comparable, once she had been offered that transfer accommodation, it was her

duty to accept the offer and the employer had met its obligation.

While the court concluded that it was unnecessary to address the employer’s undue

burden claim because it had offered a reasonable accommodation, it nevertheless found that the

employee’s preferred accommodation constituted a request to be exempted from the employer’s

uniform policy. It then cited a handful of a handful of older decisions and concluded that

employers are not required to change their appearance standards when doing so might negatively

impact their image with some customers. “[I]t is not the law that customer preference is an

insufficient justification” for refusal to relax appearance standards. Id. at 1331 (quoting Cloutier

v. Costco Wholesale Corp, 390 F.3d 126, 136 (1st Cir. 2004).

Camara teaches that an employer can avoid the question of whether an appearance

standard alternation constitutes an undue hardship by offering employees with religious

objections to those standards an equivalent, or nearly equivalent, position that is not subject to

the requirement.

1

Finding a Win-Win: Religious Accommodation Requests in the Workplace

Presented by

Deena Bailey, Senior Lawyer, Cargill Meat SolutionsRuthie L. Goodboe (Detroit (Metro)/Pittsburgh)Chris R. Pace (Kansas City)

Recent Uptick in Claims

EEOC Charges Between 2008 and 2018

– Cause findings increased 64%

– Conciliation agreements increased 489%

– Unsuccessful conciliations decreased by 32%

CAIR lawsuits filed in last 5 years: 45

General Conference of 7th Day Adventist: 19

2

Quick Primer on Accommodation Obligation

Scope of Duty

– “Affirmative” obligation; neutral practices yield to conflicting religious belief

– Duty to cooperate/duty to inquire?

– Undue burden

Three Key Areas of Conflict

Prayer accommodation

Sabbatarians

Grooming/appearance standards

3

Case Study One: Prayer Accommodation

Legal dimensions

– “Free standing” accommodation claims

– “Morale” or “burden on others”

– Production concerns

Case Study One: Prayer Accommodation

Proactive measures

– Create a policy

• Accommodation when possible

• Daily determination based on work circumstances

– Define—and document—the hardship

– Record reasons for denial

Labor/union issues

4

Case Study One: Prayer Accommodation

Litigation concerns

– Quantify undue hardship

• Engage experts early, if necessary

– Aggressively challenge cases in which there is no adverse employment action

Case Study Two: Sabbatarians

EEOC has unsuccessfully argued that an accommodation must completely eliminate the conflict

Growing consensus that whether an accommodation is “reasonable” is a question of fact

– Simply following neutral practices (like shift-swaps) may not be enough

5

Case Study Three: Appearance Standards

Legal Framework– Abercrombie & Fitch

– Customer preferences• Camara v. Epps Air Service Inc.

Containing risk– Offer transfer, even to lower paying position

– Prohibit exceptions to policy

– Internal documentation describing importance of uniform policy

Case Study Three: Appearance Standards

Labor/union considerations

Litigation considerations

– Offer transfer

– Beware of offering only “hypothetical” support for undue burden

6

Roundtable/Questions

Finding a Win-Win: Religious Accommodation Requests in the Workplace

Presented by

Deena Bailey, Senior Lawyer, Cargill Meat SolutionsRuthie L. Goodboe (Detroit (Metro)/Pittsburgh)Chris R. Pace (Kansas City)

Deena Hyson Bailey is Senior Employment & Labor Counsel at Cargill Incorporated. She partners with business clients on a broad range of complex legal needs, including general employment and labor law, immigration, Affirmative Action Plans and OFCCP audits, legislative strategy, investigations, and litigation management. Deena is an active member in the Kansas Women Attorneys Association and the Wichita Women Attorneys Association, including serving as a past president and board member of both organizations. She was honored with the Attorney of Achievement Award from both organizations. She invests her non-profit Board, volunteer and pro bono time on issues affecting women, including serving as pro bono counsel to victims of domestic violence on the Protection from Abuse Docket in the Eighteenth Judicial District in Kansas. Deena is also passionate about animal rescue, and volunteers and serves on the board of the Wichita Animal Action league.

Ruthie L. GoodboeShareholder  ||  Detroit (Metro), Pi�sburgh

Ruthie Goodboe is Co-Chair of Ogletree Deakins’ Traditional Labor

Relations practice group. Over the last �� years, Ruthie has partnered

with labor relations/human resource professionals, corporate

executives, operational management and in-house counsel to develop

and tactically implement strategies to build issue free environments

within each client’s business model and industry. She has managed over

��� union organizing drives and decertification campaigns, with a high

rate of success and minimal unfair labor practice charges. She works

within a varie� of industries and with clients of all sizes and

sophistication advising on such ma�ers as strikes, corporate campaigns,

boyco�s, joint, single and successor employer claims and mergers and

acquisitions.

For those clients who have represented workforces, Ruthie regularly

directs and conducts e�ective auditing, negotiation and administration

of collective bargaining agreements including handling numerous

arbitrations involving discharge, discipline, sub-contracting and/or

removal of bargaining unit work, recall rights, plant shutdown and

other contractual issues. She works with major corporations to align

negotiating strategies at the bargaining table with business goals as first

chair bargainer, strategist or by supporting negotiations behind the

scenes.

An integral part of her practice, Ruthie develops and presents employee

and management training related to all aspects of employment law and

labor relations with the goals of enhancing employee-management

communication, developing a well-rounded, compassionate and

objective management team, minimizing liabili� and avoiding litigation.

Chris R. Pace

Shareholder  ||  Kansas Ci�

Chris Pace has extensive experience in the areas of employment

litigation, counseling, and investigation.  He represents management in

all varie� of employment disputes before federal and state courts and

administrative agencies with a particular emphasis on representing

employers in class and collective action ma�ers.  Chris serves on the

Firm’s Class Action Steering Commi�ee and also manages the firm’s

Litigation Support Group, which assists clients with the design and

implementation of e�cient collection, review and processing

methodologies for electronically stored information.