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Thomas
v. Review Board
450
U.S. 707(1981)
The
Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons Religious Institutions
Group gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the
Ethics and Public Policy Center which provided the following case commentary taken from Terry Eastland, Religious
Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases That Define
the Debate over Church and State (1993).
In
this case the Supreme Court held that the denial of unemployment
compensation to a Jehovah's Witness who voluntarily left
his job for religious reasons violated the free-exercise
provision. The Court decided the case in light of Sherbert
v. Verner (1963).
Eddie
Thomas had worked for an Indiana foundry and machinery company
for a year when the sheet-steel-making part closed and he
was transferred to a department that produced turrets for
military tanks. He claimed, and Indiana authorities reviewing
his case agreed, that his religious beliefs prevented him
from taking part in the production of war machines, and
he quit. Indiana law conditioned unemployment compensation
upon job termination based upon a "good cause" arising in
connection with an employee's work. The reviewing authorities
held that Thomas's religious reason for quitting did not
qualify him for benefits. The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed
this conclusion, holding that the Indiana Employment Security
Act burdened his right to the free exercise of religion.
The state supreme court disagreed.
Thomas
generated two opinions. Chief Justice Burger wrote the opinion
of the Court, expressing the views of seven members (an
eighth, Justice Harry Blackmun, concurred in part). Justice
William Rehnquist filed the only dissent. Both are presented
here.
Participating
in Thomas v. Review Board, decided April 6, 1981,
were Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Associate Justices
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall,
Lewis E. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens,
Potter Stewart, and Byron R. White.
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