Woody Posted December 17, 2007 Posted December 17, 2007 Dallas settles suit with Seventh-day Adventist 05:25 PM CST on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 By MICHAEL GRABELL / The Dallas Morning News The city of Dallas will have to pay $55,000 to a Seventh-day Adventist code inspector, who sued the city in federal court for making her work on her Sabbath. Under a settlement reached earlier this month, Marilyn Ford also got her job back as a code inspector on a shift that accommodates her religious beliefs. Seventh-day Adventists celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday, as opposed to other Christian denominations which celebrate it on Sunday. The conflict began in 2004, when Ford was fired from her job on allegations that she falsified documents. She appealed and was reinstated. But her boss assigned her to work Wednesday through Sunday. When she complained, she was told that she would be fired if she didn’t accept the shift, according to her lawsuit. Ford — who had worked for the city for 19 years and been a Seventh-day Adventist for 10 — refused to work on Saturday and filed a grievance. But it was eventually denied, and she was terminated in 2005. The city argued that accommodating Ford would have caused an undue hardship because it would have had to create a new position for her. It also said Ford could have applied for a job outside the code compliance department immediately or for a Monday-Friday job within the department after a year. “When someone asks to be accommodated, we review each situation on an individual basis in an effort not to discriminate,” assistant city attorney Janice Moss said. Ford’s attorney, Bob Gorsky, said he was pleased with the settlement and didn’t anticipate any further problems regarding the accommodation of her religious beliefs. Quote May we be one so that the world may be won. Christian from the cradle to the grave I believe in Hematology.
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