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WILLEY v. MABEN MFG., INC.
479 F.Supp. 634 (1979)
Altha Dell WILLEY and Fanny Shurden, Plaintiffs,
v.
MABEN MFG., INC., Phillip Criwell and Johnny Linley, Defendants.
No. EC 78-69-S-O.
United States District Court, N. D. Mississippi, E. D.
August 22, 1979.
James M. Ward, Ward & Ward, Starkville, Miss., for plaintiffs.
William E. Hester, III, Kullman, Lang, Inman & Bee, New Orleans, La., for defendants.
MEMORANDUM OF DECISIONORMA R. SMITH, District Judge. This action was tried to the court without a jury. After receipt of post-trial memoranda, the action is now ripe for decision. This memorandum will contain the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law for which provision is made in Rule 52(a), Fed.R.Civ.P. There are two plaintiffs, Mrs. Altha Dell Willey (hereafter "Willey") and Mrs. Fanny Shurden (hereafter "Shurden"). They are adult resident citizens of the Northern District of Mississippi. The defendant is Maben Manufacturing Company, Inc. (hereafter "Maben"), a Mississippi corporation. Maben is engaged in manufacturing upholstered chairs at its plant in Maben, in the Northern District of Mississippi. Maben qualifies as an "employer" subject to the provisions of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Subchapter VI — Equal Employment Opportunities, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq.1
1. An employer subject to the Act is described in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b) as
The term "employer" means a person engaged in an industry affecting commerce who has fifteen or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year, and any agent of such a person, . .. 2. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) provides in pertinent part:
(a) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer — (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; . . .. 3. This period usually extends for two weeks. The parties stipulated that, in 1976, the year in question, the Day of Atonement, based on the Biblical text and fixed according to the Jewish Calendar, fell on Monday, October 4; the Feast of Tabernacles, was an eight-day convocation from Friday, October 8 through Friday, October 15. During this last period, plaintiffs felt that they were required to abstain from secular work the first and last days and to attend a religious convention for the whole week which for that year was held in St. Petersburg, Florida. The attendance of the convention in Florida required travel time for plaintiffs who lived in Mississippi. 4. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(j) provides:
The term "religion" includes all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee's or prospective employee's religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business. 5. In Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison,432 U.S. 63, 97 S.Ct. 2264, 53 L.Ed.2d 113 (1977), the Supreme Court said "[t]o require TWA to bear more than a de minimis cost in order to give Hardison Saturdays off is an undue hardship." 432 U.S. at 84, 97 S.Ct. at 2277. 6. Section 2000e-5(g) Title 42, provides in part:
[I]nterim earnings or amounts earnable with reasonable diligence by the person or persons discriminated against shall operate to reduce the back pay otherwise allowable. . . . 7. Willey's W-2 Form with Maben for the first 9 months of 1976, shows earnings of $4,674.19. 8. The W-2's presented, showed earnings in 1977 as follows:
Nelson Ind. — $196.07; Arnold's — $3,290.38, totalling: $3,486.45. To this must be added the sum of $48.00, paid her by Mr. Van Landingham — the total $3,534.45. 9. The W-2's presented showed earnings at Arnold's of $3,455.92 and at Kellwood, the sum of $496.25; totalling: $3,952.17.
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