Dive Brief:
- A former employee of financial advisor Dave Ramsey’s company, The Lampo Group, may proceed with her religious discrimination claims against the firm more than four years after a federal judge previously dismissed them, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee held June 12.
- The plaintiff claimed in 2021 that she was fired after becoming pregnant while unmarried due to Lampo Group’s alleged policy prohibiting employees from engaging in premarital sex. She alleged violations of laws including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and of the Tennessee Human Rights Act, stating that she was fired for having religious beliefs different from those imposed by Lampo Group on its employees.
- The court initially dismissed the Title VII and THRA claims, holding that the plaintiff’s disagreement with Lampo Group’s policy did not suffice to prove discrimination. The plaintiff filed a motion to reconsider in 2024 following a decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that employers may not discriminate against employees on the basis of religious nonconformity. The district granted the motion.
Dive Insight:
The court’s decision involved a lengthy discussion on the nature of the plaintiff’s religious beliefs and whether they in fact conflicted with Lampo Group’s employee conduct policies. The company’s “righteous living” policy, which the plaintiff alleged to have implied a prohibition against premarital sex, did not in fact have a written prohibition against such activity, Judge Eli Richardson wrote in his initial dismissal of the Title VII and THRA claims.
In his decision to reconsider the matter, Richardson said that plaintiff’s complaint “fosters confusion as to the various potential sources of whatever rule, policy, standard, etc. was invoked as justification” for her firing. But the judge ultimately concluded that the plaintiff’s allegation, properly construed, was that she was terminated for not adhering to Judeo-Christian beliefs promoted by Ramsey’s company in its employee handbook, rather than any specific policy against a particular behavior.
“This finding is a close call, because in the Court’s view the Third Amended Complaint was not nearly as clear as it could have been as to what rule, policy, standard, etc.,” the plaintiff violated, Richardson said. “But on balance, the Court concludes that construed in her favor, the Third Amended Complaint does allege what it needs to allege to state the claim asserted in [her complaint].”
Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of an employee’s sincerely-held religious belief or practice. The 6th Circuit’s 2024 decision in Amos v. Lampo Group, LLC — also a religious discrimination case brought against Ramsey’s company — held that the law’s protections extend to situations in which employees are discriminated against because they do not share their employers’ religious convictions.