Sherbert v. Verner

Facts

Sherbert joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1957. At that time her employer, a textile-mill operator in South Carolina, let her work a five-day week. In 1959 the employer changed the work week to six days, including Saturday, for all three shifts. Saturday is the Sabbath of her faith, and the prohibition against Saturday labor is a basic tenet of the Adventist creed. No one questioned the sincerity of her belief. She would not work on Saturday, and the employer discharged her. She then looked for work at three other mills in the Spartanburg area but found no suitable five-day work. She filed a claim for unemployment compensation benefits. In filing it, she said she would accept a job at other mills, or even in another industry, if Saturday work was not required. The South Carolina statute makes a claimant eligible only if able to work and available for work. It also makes a claimant ineligible who fails, without good cause, to accept available suitable work when it is offered. The State's Employment Security Commission found that her restriction on Saturday work disqualified her. The record indicated that of 150 or more Seventh-day Adventists in the area, only she and one other had been unable to find suitable non-Saturday work.

Issues

1. Does South Carolina burden the free exercise of religion when it denies unemployment benefits to a worker who cannot find work because her religion forbids her to work on Saturday?
2. If the denial is a burden, does a compelling state interest in the eligibility provisions justify it?

Holding

South Carolina may not constitutionally apply its eligibility provisions to deny unemployment benefits to a Sabbatarian who cannot find work because she will not work on Saturday. The denial substantially burdened her free exercise of religion, and the State showed no compelling interest to justify it.