WASHINGTON (AP) -- An employee fired after giving Bibles to co-workers and praying with them lost his religious harassment case before the Supreme Court, but justices refused Monday to block a trial on the termination.
Conservative groups wanted the court to use the case to provide guidelines for workplace "witnessing". The court declined, without comment.
Kenneth Weiss offered a Bible to a Muslim co-worker at a Florida medical lab and called a lesbian colleague's attention to Scripture that describes homosexuality as "vile" and "unseemly." The born again Christian also "laid hands" on ill co-workers and prayed over a malfunctioning machine.
An appeals court said the behavior was not prudent, but determined that a jury should decide if he was guilty of harassing colleagues and deserved to be fired.
Weiss claims he was the one being harassed, for practicing his religion. He sued under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans on-the-job discrimination because of someone's religion, gender or race.
The act "was intended to protect religious expression in the workplace, not stifle it," Weiss told the Supreme Court. He said the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling "leaves religious employees with little choice but to completely refrain from offering religious literature to others in the workplace, for fear of being terminated for harassment."
Neither Weiss nor his employer, REN Laboratories of Florida Inc., was satisfied with the appeals court ruling. The Supreme Court turned back appeals from both, which sends the case back to Florida for a trial.
Weiss was hired in 1992 as a medical technician at a Fort Lauderdale lab and promoted to night shift supervisor later that year. He was fired in 1993, after talking to a new employee about the importance of attending church.
He is described as a mild-mannered worker who openly discussed his faith. Weiss said he did not intentionally offend anyone.
The appeals court said he should have known that a Muslim would not want a copy of the Bible and that it was not prudent to initiate prayer sessions at work with colleagues.
He had been reprimanded for other things, including getting the wrong results in an AIDS test.
Lawyers for REN Laboratories told the Supreme Court that the company had the "legal duty to keep its workplace free of religious harassment." His behavior put the company "in a position of possibly losing employees to resignation or, worse, being sued by employees for tolerating a religiously hostile work environment," the attorneys said.
A Florida jury determined that he was wrongly terminated, but the judge in the case threw out the verdict. The appeals court ordered a second trial in the case.
Weiss asked the Supreme Court to clarify "where protected religious observance and practice leave off and unprotected harassment begins." He was represented by the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based conservative group that defends claims of religious discrimination.
His suit claims that federal law protects religious expressions and that the appeals court decision "effectively chills innocuous religious speech and conduct in the workplace."
The cases are Weiss v. REN Laboratories of Florida, 01-317 and REN Laboratories v. Weiss, 01-292.