Rhino
11-16-2006, 09:27 AM
Nov 16, 4:45 AM EST
Woman Wins Religious Discrimination Case
By DANA FIELDS
Associated Press Writer
SAVANNAH, Mo. (AP) -- Three years after she was fired for refusing to work on Sundays, Connie Rehm has won back her job on the staff of this small town's public library, and her employers have received a costly education in employment rights law.
No less a legal team than the same Florida attorneys who represented the parents of Terri Schiavo - the brain-damaged woman at the center of last year's right-to-die case - took up Rehm's cause, suing Rolling Hills Consolidated Library on a claim of religious discrimination.
A federal jury found in her favor after a three-day trial in May, and last month she was reinstated on a judge's order to the staff assistant job she had held for 12 years before her religious practice and the library's adoption of Sunday hours collided in 2003.
To Rehm, a 54-year-old former junior high school math teacher who still attends the Lutheran church where she and her husband were married 34 years ago, the outcome of her case is a victory for any employee whose conviction against laboring on the Sabbath is tested by workplace demands......http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NOT_ON_SUNDAY?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
Woman Wins Religious Discrimination Case
By DANA FIELDS
Associated Press Writer
SAVANNAH, Mo. (AP) -- Three years after she was fired for refusing to work on Sundays, Connie Rehm has won back her job on the staff of this small town's public library, and her employers have received a costly education in employment rights law.
No less a legal team than the same Florida attorneys who represented the parents of Terri Schiavo - the brain-damaged woman at the center of last year's right-to-die case - took up Rehm's cause, suing Rolling Hills Consolidated Library on a claim of religious discrimination.
A federal jury found in her favor after a three-day trial in May, and last month she was reinstated on a judge's order to the staff assistant job she had held for 12 years before her religious practice and the library's adoption of Sunday hours collided in 2003.
To Rehm, a 54-year-old former junior high school math teacher who still attends the Lutheran church where she and her husband were married 34 years ago, the outcome of her case is a victory for any employee whose conviction against laboring on the Sabbath is tested by workplace demands......http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NOT_ON_SUNDAY?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US