Opinion of the Court
As for the second, the Court disputed the dissent’s conclusion that Hardison, if he moved back to Building 1, would have had enough seniority to choose to work the night shift. Id., at 83, n. 14. That latter disagreement was key. The dissent thought that Hardison could have resumed the night shift in Building 1 after just three months, and it therefore calculated what it would have cost TWA to pay other workers’ overtime wages on Saturdays for that finite period of time. According to that calculation, TWA’s added expense for three months would have been $150 (about $1,250 in 2022 dollars).[1] Id., at 92, n. 6. But the Court doubted that Hardison could have regained the seniority rights he had enjoyed in Building 1 prior to his transfer, and if that were true, TWA would have been required to pay other workers overtime for Saturday work indefinitely. Even under Justice Marshall’s math, that would have worked out to $600 per year at the time, or roughly $5,000 per year today.
In the briefs and at argument, little space was devoted to the question of determining when increased costs amount to an “undue hardship” under the statute, but a single, but oft-quoted, sentence in the opinion of the Court, if taken literally, suggested that even a pittance might be too much for an employer to be forced to endure. The line read as follows: “To require TWA to bear more than a de minimis cost in order to give Hardison Saturdays off is an undue hardship.” Id., at 84.
Although this line would later be viewed by many lower courts as the authoritative interpretation of the statutory term “undue hardship,” it is doubtful that it was meant to take on that large role. In responding to Justice Marshall’s dissent, the Court described the governing standard quite
- ↑ The dissent appears to have drawn its estimate from Hardison’s daily rate at the time of termination ($3.37/hour) and deposition testimony on typical overtime rates and shift lengths. See App. in No. 75–1126 etc., at pp. 40, 126.
