Prima Facie Case

Possible Defence of Employers

The evidence that the employers’ dismissal procedure lacked the notification of employee’s problem is obvious, so employers may not able to defend for their unfair dismissal.

However, for the accusing of the religious discrimination, employers may have a lot to say. The key point of this case is that the employers don’t know about Kareem’s religion and his religious practices need. In this case, Kareem claims the employer’s failure to reasonably accommodate religion. To establish a prima facie case, he has to show three following things. The first is the existence of the conflict between his religious practices and an employment requirement. Secondly, he should ensure that the employer really know about his religious

belief or practices conflict with the working requirements. Thirdly, he is supposed to prove that he suffered an adverse employment outcome because of the religious belief or practice (EEOC). From all interviews conducted by ER representatives, we know that Kareem never told either his supervisor or the manager that he is a Muslim and he has to pray five times a day. Even when Janet asked where he was going once she encountered him when he was going to pray, Kareem did not tell her about his religious practice needs. Besides, “employers are not expected to be aware of the religious affiliations and practices of their employees”(David, 2014). That is to say if Kareem did not notify his employers of his religious practices need, employers have no obligation to ask him whether he has religious belief or practice need at work time. Kareem could hardly prove that the employers know about his religious practices need and his practices conflict with the call center’s high performance requirement. So maybe the procedure of the dismissal was not unfair, there is no religious discrimination in this case.
Based on this, employers can claim that the dismissal is under employment-at-will. That means employers can terminate any employment at any time for any reason even no reason (FindLaw). In this case, Kareem’s supervisor did find the dropping of the number of calls he answered, and he indeed had extra breaks besides the 15-minute break and the lunch break. Thus under the employment-at-will, employers may defend that Kareem’s performance did not meet the requirement and their dismissal of Kareem was fair enough.