United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit
No. 24-1655
JENNIFER DEANGELIS; NATALIE TOMASELLI,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
HASBRO, INC.,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. Mary S. McElroy, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Barron, Chief Judge, Gelpí and Aframe, Circuit Judges.
Stephen T. Fanning for appellants.
Leslie D. Parker, with whom Patricia K. Rocha, Christoper J. Yagoobian, and Adler Pollock & Sheehan, P.C., were on brief, for appellee.
January 29, 2026 AFRAME, Circuit Judge. This is an appeal from the
dismissal of retaliation and discrimination claims brought by two
former employees of Hasbro, Inc., the global toy and game company.
These former employees sought exemptions from Hasbro's COVID-19
vaccination policy on religious grounds and then, after not
receiving the requested exemptions, resigned their employment. We
vacate the dismissals and remand for further proceedings.
I.
Because this appeal arises from the dismissal of the
plaintiffs' amended complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(6), we draw the facts from the operative complaint,
accepting the well-pleaded allegations as true and affording to
the plaintiffs all reasonable inferences from those allegations.
Better Way Ford, LLC v. Ford Motor Co., 142 F.4th 67, 77 (1st Cir.
2025).
A. Natalie Tomaselli
In late 2021, Hasbro announced a policy requiring all
employees entering its offices to receive a vaccination against
the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. At
the time, the first plaintiff, Natalie Tomaselli, worked as
Hasbro's Associate Manager for Global Brand Publicity. She had
worked for the company since 2018 and had worked remotely since
March 2020, when the pandemic began. On October 7, 2021, she
emailed Hasbro asking for an accommodation from its vaccination
- 2 - policy; specifically, she requested to "continue to be a remote
employee and only enter the office on an extremely limited and as
needed basis." She explained that she was an observant Christian
and that the vaccination requirement violated several tenets of
her religious beliefs, namely one against putting substances into
her body without her consent and another against abortion. The
latter objection was implicated because Tomaselli believed that
the COVID-19 vaccines were developed using tissue from aborted
fetuses. She provided citations to the Bible which, she said,
supported her views.
Three days after Tomaselli requested this accommodation,
her employee badge stopped working, and she could no longer enter
Hasbro's offices or any event requiring company identification.
Thereafter, on October 21, 2021, Hasbro's human resources office
informed Tomaselli that Hasbro had opened an investigation into
whether she had violated company policy by allegedly failing to
wear a mask at a volunteer event over three months earlier, in
June 2021, at which Hasbro employees cleaned vacant camp cabins.
As a result of the investigation, Hasbro issued Tomaselli a written
warning.
On November 2, 2021, Tomaselli began a medical leave
caused by stress and anxiety from her employment as well as an
unrelated medical condition. During Tomaselli's leave, Hasbro
removed her from its internal organizational charts, even though
- 3 - others on leave remained on the charts; her manager informed her
colleagues that she was unlikely to return after her medical leave;
and Hasbro told her that, because of the written warning, she was
generally ineligible for promotions and would not be considered
for two particular promotions that were then available.
Tomaselli returned from her medical leave in early June
2022. Her supervisor appeared surprised by her return and shortly
thereafter asked Tomaselli to participate in at least four events
that required her full vaccination, despite knowing that she was
unvaccinated. Tomaselli was also informed that her written warning
was still operative and that if she wanted vacation, she would
have to submit requests for pre-approval, which was a marked change
from prior procedure. In addition, around this time, Hasbro issued
an announcement which stated that a negative effect on productivity
caused by an employee's choice to remain unvaccinated would be
deemed a performance issue. On August 22, 2022, Tomaselli
resigned, citing severe and pervasive harassment and retaliation.
At no point prior to her resignation did Hasbro act on Tomaselli's
October 7, 2021, accommodation request.
B. Jennifer DeAngelis
The second plaintiff, Jennifer DeAngelis, worked as
Hasbro's Senior Manager for Global Brand Publicity. She had worked
for the company since 2012, and like Tomaselli, had been working
remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. At an unspecified time,
- 4 - DeAngelis submitted an initial request for an accommodation from
Hasbro's COVID-19 vaccination policy. The contents of her initial
accommodation request are not detailed in the complaint.
Hasbro responded to DeAngelis's initial request on
September 20, 2021. In an email, the company stated that it was
"willing to provide flexibility" with respect to its employees'
working arrangements, "including the ability to continue to work
from home temporarily," and that, consequently, it was "putting on
hold formal requests to work remotely as religious or medical
accommodations to the mandatory vaccine requirement." Hasbro
invited DeAngelis to inform her manager that she was interested in
continuing to work remotely. Hasbro also requested that, if
DeAngelis wanted an alternative accommodation, she respond with
more information regarding the desired accommodation.
Three days later, DeAngelis responded. She explained
that it was her "sincerely held religious belief that forcing upon
someone any substance [was] 'equivalent to the sin and crime of
rape.'" She also objected to the COVID-19 vaccines particularly
because she understood them to have been "developed or tested on
aborted human tissue," which she equated "to the sin of child
- 5 - sacrifice." Like Tomaselli, DeAngelis supported her religious
objection to the COVID-19 vaccines with biblical citations.1
DeAngelis requested that Hasbro accommodate her by
allowing her to "keep primarily working from home" and "on the
very rare occasions where [she] would have to go into the office,"
to do so while observing certain protocols, including screening
herself for symptoms, practicing social distancing, and wearing a
face mask. About a week later, Hasbro requested that DeAngelis
execute an affidavit, the apparent purpose of which was to verify
her asserted religious beliefs, and to submit letters from others
attesting to the sincerity of her beliefs, both of which DeAngelis
did.
Thereafter, Hasbro issued DeAngelis a "final written
warning." The warning, dated October 27, 2021, alleged that
DeAngelis had jeopardized the health and safety of her colleagues
and others by not wearing a mask and had otherwise failed to
provide ethical leadership. The conduct to which the warning
apparently referred was DeAngelis's alleged failure to wear a mask
1 DeAngelis, who was then pregnant, also requested an accommodation on medical grounds. She later asserted various disability-discrimination claims against Hasbro. Those claims were dismissed by the district court, as were disability-discrimination claims asserted by Tomaselli relating to the medical condition that contributed to her going on leave. Neither plaintiff has challenged the dismissal of their disability-related claims. We therefore do not further discuss them.
- 6 - at the same volunteer event held months earlier for which the
company also investigated and cited Tomaselli. The warning
threatened DeAngelis with discharge and resulted in her removal
from consideration for future promotion opportunities.
DeAngelis's performance record had been unblemished during her
previous nine years at the company.
Subsequently, DeAngelis began a medical leave for her
pregnancy. By the time she returned, Hasbro had filled her
position with a new hire. DeAngelis asserts that Hasbro also
denied her access to its offices and events, denied her a
previously promised promotion for which she was the most qualified
candidate, disseminated certain unspecified aspects of her medical
information to other employees without her approval, and contrary
to prior practice, required her to submit all vacation requests
and obtain advanced approval for days off. DeAngelis resigned on
August 22, 2022, the same day as Tomaselli, and, like Tomaselli,
she alleges that Hasbro's actions compelled her resignation.
C. The District Court Proceedings
Tomaselli and DeAngelis sued Hasbro in Rhode Island
state court, asserting claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2002 et seq., the Rhode Island Civil
Rights Act, R.I. Gen. L. § 42-112-1, and the Rhode Island Fair
Employment Practices Act, R.I. Gen. L. § 28-5-1, for retaliation
- 7 - and discrimination.2 Hasbro removed the action to federal district
court, and, after the plaintiffs amended their complaint, moved to
dismiss.
After a hearing, the district court granted Hasbro's
motion. The court first held that the plaintiffs' exemption
requests were "not based on religion."3 With respect to the
unwanted introduction of a vaccine into their bodies, "[t]he
2 We have previously analyzed claims under the Rhode Island Civil Rights Act and the Rhode Island Fair Employment Act together with Title VII. See Ripoli v. R.I. Dep't of Hum. Servs., 123 F.4th 565, 571 n.5 (1st Cir. 2024); Rathbun v. Autozone, Inc., 361 F.3d 62, 71 (1st Cir. 2004). Here, "[t]he parties identify no relevant distinctions between the federal and state-law schemes -- leaving us at liberty to analyze the two sets of claims jointly for purposes of this appeal." Menninger v. PPD Dev., L.P., 145 F.4th 126, 133 n.2 (1st Cir. 2025). Hasbro argues that we should not consider the claims together because the plaintiffs waived any argument about the state-law claims by failing to address them separately on appeal. But, in their opening brief, the plaintiffs explained that, in their view, the Rhode Island statutes were simply the state-law "correlative" of Title VII -- meaning that they intended that their appellate arguments apply to the state and federal claims in like fashion. Given that we have treated such claims together in the past and that Hasbro has identified no legal difference between them, we think the plaintiffs' approach here was adequate. We thus treat the arguments as to the state-law claims as preserved, without prejudice to any party addressing them separately from the Title VII claims as the case progresses on remand. 3 The district court also stated that the case did not turn on the plaintiffs' exemption requests in any event because they, like all Hasbro employees, were accommodated by being permitted to wear a mask while indoors in lieu of being vaccinated, making the requested accommodations unnecessary. We do not, however, see any support for the existence of this alleged alternative to the vaccination requirement in the amended complaint or elsewhere in the record.
- 8 - important question," according to the court, was not "whether an
employee has a religious belief not to mistreat her body" but
"whether the employee's belief that the vaccine qualifies as a
mistreatment is itself based in religion." Concluding that the
plaintiffs' beliefs were insufficiently connected to a religious
tenet, the court held that this rationale was inadequate to support
their accommodation requests. As to the alleged use of tissue
from aborted fetuses in the development of the vaccines, the court
held that opposition to abortion was "moral" not religious and
therefore also inadequate. Separately, the court concluded that
the complaint failed to plead an adverse employment action under
the standards necessary to maintain retaliation and discrimination
claims, respectively, and, as to DeAngelis, that there was "no
nexus" between the promotion that she missed and her refusal to
vaccinate herself against COVID-19.
II.
After the district court dismissed the plaintiffs'
complaint, we decided Bazinet v. Beth Israel Lahey Health, Inc.,
113 F.4th 9 (1st Cir. 2024) and Thornton v. Ipsen
Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., 126 F.4th 76 (1st Cir. 2025). In
Bazinet, we held that an employee who had been discharged for
refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine had stated a Title VII
religious-discrimination claim where she had alleged that her
refusal to take the vaccine was based on (1) her religiously
- 9 - grounded opposition to abortion, and (2) her understanding that
the COVID-19 vaccine was developed using cells obtained from
aborted fetuses. See 133 F.4th at 12, 17. Then, in Thornton, we
reinstated a Title VII claim brought by an employee who objected
to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine based on her belief that her
body had been created in God's image and that taking a vaccine
would "defil[e]" it. 126 F.4th at 82.
Hasbro properly does not urge us to affirm the district
court's dismissal order based on its conclusion that the
plaintiffs' refusal to take the COVID-19 vaccine was based on
something other than a religious belief. As we explained in
Bazinet, the fact that the plaintiffs' opposition to abortion may
have a moral component or may be held by others solely for moral
reasons does not mean that, for these plaintiffs, the position
lacks a religious character. See Bazinet, 113 F.4th at 16-17.
And, as we explained in Thornton, "my-body-is-my-temple arguments
rooted in a plaintiff's religious beliefs are sufficient to plead
the existence of a bona fide religious belief" for the purposes of
Title VII. Thornton, 126 F.4th at 83-84 (collecting cases). The
plaintiffs here sufficiently alleged that their opposition to
taking the COVID-19 vaccine was based on a comprehensive system of
religious belief. No more is required at this stage. See id. at
84.
- 10 - We are left then to consider whether we may affirm the
dismissal of the plaintiffs' retaliation and discrimination claims
on the alternate grounds provided by the district court or, as
Hasbro urges, for another basis apparent from the record. See Am.
Bd. of Internal Med. v. Rushford, 114 F.4th 42, 57 (1st Cir. 2024).
We start with the retaliation claims.
A.
To prevail on a Title VII retaliation claim, a plaintiff
must prove that she engaged in conduct protected by the statute
and that, because of her conduct, her employer took materially
adverse action against her. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a). In this
context, an adverse action is an employer action that "well might
have 'dissuaded a reasonable worker'" from engaging in the
protected activity. Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. v. White, 548
U.S. 53, 68-69 (2006) (quoting Rochon v. Gonzales, 438 F.3d 1211,
1219 (D.C. Cir. 2006)); Stratton v. Bentley Univ., 113 F.4th 25,
41-42 (1st Cir. 2024).
To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff need only
plead facts that make the claim plausible. See Carrero-Ojeda v.
Autoridad De Energía Eléctrica, 755 F.3d 711, 717-18 (1st Cir.
2014); Rodríguez-Reyes v. Molina-Rodríguez, 711 F.3d 49, 53 (1st
Cir. 2013). To determine whether a plaintiff has done so, we "read
[the] complaint[] 'as a whole,'" Rodríguez-Vives v. P.R.
Firefighters Corps of P.R., 743 F.3d 278, 283 (1st Cir. 2014)
- 11 - (quoting García-Catalán v. United States, 734 F.3d 100, 103 (1st
Cir. 2013)), without demanding a "one-to-one relationship between
any single allegation and a necessary element of the cause of
action," Rodríguez-Reyes, 711 F.3d at 55, or the narration of
"every fact necessary to win at trial," Rodríguez-Vives, 743 F.3d
at 283; accord Thomas v. JBS Green Bay, Inc., 120 F.4th 1335, 1337
(7th Cir. 2024). Plausibility is required, see Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
556 U.S. 662 (2009), but there is no requirement to plead a
complete prima facie case of liability, see Rodríguez-Reyes, 711
F.3d at 54 ("It is not necessary to plead facts sufficient to
establish a prima facie case at the pleading stage.");
Garayalde-Rijos v. Municipality of Carolina, 747 F.3d 15, 24 (1st
Cir. 2014) ("We have explicitly held that plaintiffs need not plead
facts in the complaint that establish a prima facie case under
Title VII . . . ."); Frith v. Whole Foods Mkt., Inc., 38 F.4th
263, 275 (1st Cir. 2022) (similar).
Nevertheless, we have often employed "the elements of a
prima facie case . . . as a prism to shed light upon the
plausibility of the claim." Rodríguez-Reyes, 711 F.3d at 54; see
also, e.g., Carrero-Ojeda, 755 F.3d at 718. And here, matching
the allegations in the amended complaint with the two presently
contested elements of the plaintiffs' retaliation claims -- the
adverse actions the plaintiffs suffered and the causal connection
between those actions and their protected conduct -- helpfully
- 12 - illustrates why the retaliation claims are plausible.4 See
Rodríguez-Reyes, 711 F.3d at 54 (noting that the elements of a
prima facie case of liability remain relevant to the plausibility
assessment because they form "part of the background against which
[the] plausibility determination should be made");
Ocasio-Hernández v. Fortuño-Burset, 640 F.3d 1, 13 (1st Cir. 2011)
(similar).
Respecting the adverse actions allegedly taken by
Hasbro, the amended complaint states that, after the plaintiffs
requested an accommodation from Hasbro's COVID-19 vaccination
requirement, they received warnings based on alleged violations of
company policy that had occurred months earlier; that these
warnings precluded their advancement within the company,
including, as to DeAngelis, by disqualifying her from a previously
promised promotion and, as to Tomaselli, by removing her from
consideration for two available promotions; and that, by the time
DeAngelis returned from leave, her job had been given to someone
else. Various other allegations -- such as the removal of
Tomaselli from internal organizational charts while she was on
leave; her assignment to events requiring vaccination; the
4 Hasbro concedes for the purposes of appeal that, in requesting religious accommodations, the plaintiffs engaged in activity protected under Title VII, and we accept that concession. See Evans-García v. United States, 744 F.3d 235, 239 (1st Cir. 2014); Computervision Corp. & Subsidiaries v. Comm'r, 164 F.3d 73, 75 (1st Cir. 1999).
- 13 - dissemination of the plaintiffs' medical information to coworkers;
and the company's new practice of reviewing the plaintiffs'
vacation requests -- add color to what is at its core a story of
Hasbro's reprisals resulting in the plaintiffs' marginalization
within the company.
It is unnecessary to decide at this preliminary stage
"whether each of these individual allegations would, standing
alone, be sufficient to state a plausible claim of retaliation
under Title VII." Rodríguez-Vives, 743 F.3d at 286. Some -- such
as the investigation of the plaintiffs' alleged failure to wear a
mask at the charity event and the associated warnings, their
subsequent removal from eligibility for promotions, and the denial
of a specific promotion to DeAngelis -- may, if proved, constitute
adverse actions that could individually ground employer liability.
See Rae v. Woburn Pub. Schs., 113 F.4th 86, 106 (1st Cir. 2024)
(noting that denial of a promotion "plainly constituted [an]
adverse employment action[]" for retaliation purposes); Billings
v. Town of Grafton, 515 F.3d 39, 54 (1st Cir. 2008) (noting that
an employee subjected to "a formal investigation and
reprimand -- including a threat of further, more serious
discipline -- might well choose not to" engage in protected
conduct (citation modified)). Others, based on the limited
information before us, seem more like the types of "petty slights"
and "minor annoyances" that may not individually support a Title
- 14 - VII retaliation claim. Morales-Vallellanos v. Potter, 605 F.3d
27, 36 (1st Cir. 2010) (quoting Burlington N., 548 U.S. at 68).
If discovery reveals that some or all these allegations
cannot independently support liability for retaliation, "they can
be pared off on summary judgment." Thomas, 120 F.4th at 1338.
For now, the important point is that the allegations in the
complaint possess sufficient "cumulative weight" to "plausibly
paint a picture that would allow a factfinder to find [Hasbro's]
conduct sufficient to deter a reasonable person" from engaging in
protected conduct had they known what would result.
Rodríguez-Vives, 743 F.3d at 285-86 (concluding that a similar
constellation of actions was sufficient to permit a Title VII
retaliation claim to survive a motion to dismiss).
That leaves causation, and here, too, the amended
complaint demonstrates plausibility. See Rodríguez-Reyes, 711
F.3d at 56. To start, the complaint's chronology suggests
retaliation. See id. at 56-57. Three days after Tomaselli
requested an accommodation, Hasbro removed her access to its
offices. Just weeks after that, DeAngelis received a written
warning and an investigation into Tomaselli started, which
resulted in a similar warning. We have held similar periods to be
close enough to support a reasonable inference of causation on a
motion to dismiss. See Garayalde-Rijos, 747 F.3d at 25 (adverse
treatment occurred "only weeks" after plaintiff prevailed at the
- 15 - EEOC on separate complaint); accord Norgren v. Minn. Dep't of Hum.
Servs., 96 F.4th 1048, 1055 (8th Cir. 2024) (similar, three weeks).
And here, the causal inference arising from temporal
proximity is stronger when Hasbro's alleged actions are viewed in
context. See Garayalde-Rijos, 747 F.3d at 15 (explaining that
temporal analysis must be conducted "holistically"). Hasbro had
taken no action in connection with the masking incident at the
charity event in the roughly three months before plaintiffs'
accommodation requests, and the punishments that Hasbro ultimately
imposed appear, on the face of the complaint, to be at least
arguably disproportionate to the alleged infractions. Other
innocent inferences could be drawn, but it is a "common-sense,
plausible reading of [the] complaint" that Hasbro's issuance of
the warnings and denial of Tomaselli's access to its facilities
close in time to the accommodation requests suggest retaliation.
Id. at 25; see Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679.
The plausibility of a causal link between the
plaintiffs' protected conduct and the warnings issued by Hasbro
also bolsters an inference that the company's other, later actions
were connected to the plaintiffs' protected conduct. Hasbro cited
the warnings to disqualify the plaintiffs from promotions and
reminded Tomaselli that when she returned from leave her warning
was still in effect. If the warnings were retaliatory, it is
plausible that these later actions based upon them were similarly
- 16 - motivated. And, against this backdrop, other roughly
contemporaneous actions -- such as Hasbro's removal of Tomaselli
from the company's organization chart and her manager's informing
Tomaselli's coworkers that she was unlikely to return after her
medical leave -- also begin to assume a plausibly retaliatory
cast.
It bears emphasis that retaliation is not the only
possible explanation for Hasbro's actions. And the plaintiffs
have not yet proven any of the facts alleged. But, at this stage,
they need not establish the truth of their allegations or that a
retaliatory inference is most probable. See Evergreen Partnering
Grp., Inc. v. Pactiv Corp., 720 F.3d 33, 46 (1st Cir. 2013)
("Assuming that [the plaintiff] can adduce sufficient evidence to
support its factual allegations, the choice between or among
plausible interpretations of the evidence will be a task for the
factfinder." (alteration in original) (quoting Anderson News,
L.L.C. v. Am. Media, Inc., 680 F.3d 162, 190 (2d Cir. 2012)));
McDonough v. Anoka County, 799 F.3d 931, 946 (8th Cir. 2015)
("[F]erreting out the most likely reason for the defendants'
actions is not appropriate at the pleadings stage." (quoting Watson
Carpet & Floor Covering, Inc. v. Mohawk Indus., Inc., 648 F.3d
452, 458 (6th Cir. 2011))). The plaintiffs were only required to
plead facts showing that their retaliation claims are plausible,
and they have done so.
- 17 - Hasbro resists this conclusion, arguing that the
plaintiffs' failure to wear masks at the charity event provides an
obvious alternative explanation for both the warnings they
received and the consequences stemming therefrom. An obvious
alternative explanation for the defendant's conduct may prevent a
claim from tipping from possible to plausible, see, e.g., Bell
Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 567-68 (2007), and we
recognized in Firth that sometimes such an explanation exists for
an employer's disciplinary measures, see, e.g., Frith, 38 F.4th at
274-76.
However, unlike in Frith, where mask-wearing prompted by
the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the "controversial message"
that the plaintiffs wished to display on their masks provided an
obvious non-discriminatory reason for the employer to begin
enforcing its previously dormant dress code, see id. at 274-75,
there is no obvious nonretaliatory explanation here for why Hasbro
investigated and disciplined both plaintiffs for the same alleged
violation of company COVID-19 policies months after the violations
occurred and just following their accommodation requests. There
are other possible explanations -- and Hasbro has suggested one,
noting that neither plaintiff claims that they were wearing a mask
at the volunteer event or otherwise alleges compliance with the
masking policy at that event. But the facts alleged do not make
those other explanations so strong, or the plaintiffs' preferred
- 18 - retaliatory explanation so weak, that dismissal is warranted. See
Rodríguez-Vives, 743 F.3d at 286; Evergreen Partnering Grp., 720
F.3d at 45-46; see also Wilson v. Ark. Dep't of Hum. Servs., 850
F.3d 368, 373 (8th Cir. 2017) ("Not every potential lawful
explanation for the defendant's conduct renders the plaintiff's
theory implausible. A defendant is not entitled to dismissal if
the facts are merely consistent with lawful conduct." (citation
modified)).
Similarly, Hasbro contends that various actions that it
is alleged to have taken during the plaintiffs' respective medical
leaves were caused by the leaves, not the accommodation requests.
This argument founders for the same reason: Although the medical
leave or "other, undisclosed facts may explain the sequence
better," Sepúlveda-Villarini v. Dep't of Educ. of P.R., 628 F.3d
25, 30 (1st Cir. 2010), that does not render the plaintiffs' claims
implausible. Rather, it simply serves to underscore "that
plausibility of allegations may not be matched by adequacy of
evidence." Rae, 113 F.4th at 110 (citation omitted); see also
Sepúlveda-Villarini, 628 F.3d at 30 ("A plausible but inconclusive
inference from pleaded facts will survive a motion to dismiss
. . . ."). And, in any event, even if the plaintiffs' medical
leaves caused certain of Hasbro's actions, that would not dispel
the plausible inference of retaliation arising from company
- 19 - conduct that occurred before the plaintiffs began their respective
leaves.
For the reasons discussed, the district court erred in
dismissing the plaintiffs' retaliation claims.
B.
Although the plaintiffs' religious discrimination claims
present a closer question, we likewise conclude that their
dismissal was unwarranted. Title VII's anti-discrimination
provision, section 2000e-2, prohibits employers from
discriminating against an employee because of the employee's
religious beliefs, observances, or practices. See 42 U.S.C.
§§ 2000e(j), 2000e-2(a)(1). The statute covers an employer's
failure to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious belief
or practice, see, e.g., Lowe v. Mills, 68 F.4th 706, 718-19 (1st
Cir. 2023), and an action taken against an employee due, at least
in part, to the employer's religiously-based animus, see, e.g.,
Ahmed v. Johnson, 752 F.3d 490, 503 (1st Cir. 2014); cf. Lockridge
v. Univ. of Me. Sys., 597 F.3d 464, 473 (1st Cir. 2010); see also
Carter v. Local 556, Transport Workers Union of America, 156 F.4th
459, 479 (5th Cir. 2025) ("[A] plaintiff has two paths to show a
claim of religious discrimination under Title VII, specifically by
showing that an employer . . . actively discriminated against the
employee based on the employee's religion or failed to accommodate
the employee's religious 'observance or practice' where such
- 20 - accommodation would not cause undue hardship." (emphasis
omitted)).
Whichever theory is advanced -- at this stage, the
"complaint need not pin [the] claim for relief" to either one,
Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521, 530 (2011) -- the challenged
discrimination must amount to the actual or constructive discharge
of the plaintiff employee, or otherwise affect the "compensation,
terms, conditions, or privileges" of their employment, 42 U.S.C.
§ 2000e-2(a)(1); see Thornton, 126 F.4th at 81-82; Exby-Stolley v.
Bd. of Cnty. Comm'rs, 979 F.3d 784, 793 & n.3 (10th Cir. 2020)
(collecting cases); see also EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores,
Inc., 575 U.S. 768, 771 (2015).
The plaintiffs' amended complaint alleges, in essence,
that after receiving the accommodation requests, Hasbro began to
discriminate against the plaintiffs because of their religion
instead of reasonably accommodating their religious beliefs and
practices by exempting them from the company's vaccination
requirement. The hybrid character of these allegations, combining
aspects of a reasonable-accommodation theory with assertions of
discrimination based on religious animus, distinguishes this case
from Bazinet and Thornton, as well as several other similar
decisions, where the plaintiff-employee unsuccessfully requested
an exemption from an employer's vaccine policy and then the
employer terminated the employee for failing to comply with the
- 21 - policy. See Bazinet, 113 F.4th at 12; Thornton, 126 F.4th at 79;
Lowe, 68 F.4th at 709; Rodrique v. Hearst Commc'ns, Inc., 126 F.4th
85, 87 (1st Cir. 2025). In those cases, once the employee
established the religious nature of the objection to the policy,
the question of whether the later termination violated section
2000e-2 turned on the reasonableness of the requested
accommodation. See Bazinet, 113 F.4th at 12; Thornton, 126 F.4th
at 79; Lowe, 68 F.4th at 709; Rodrique, 126 F.4th at 87. Here, by
contrast, the amended complaint proceeds against Hasbro on
multiple, overlapping fronts, some implicating the reasonableness
of the accommodation and others aimed at Hasbro's alleged religious
animus.
On appeal, the plaintiffs principally focus on whether
Hasbro actively discriminated against them based on religious
animus. We follow suit, looking again to the elements of the claim
for guidance on whether the amended complaint, taken as a whole,
has alleged facts that make the plaintiffs' religious
discrimination claims plausible. See supra III.A. Because we
have already established that the complaint plausibly alleges that
the plaintiffs' religious beliefs, as expressed in their
accommodation requests, fell within Title VII's protection, see
supra II., we need only consider whether the plaintiffs have
plausibly alleged that Hasbro took adverse action against them
because of these beliefs, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1).
- 22 - We start with the adverse employment action. With its
focus on actions directly affecting the plaintiff's employment,
section 2000e-2(a)(1) is different, and often more demanding, than
its counterpart in the retaliation context, where an employer's
conduct is actionably adverse so long as it would have deterred a
reasonable employee from engaging in protected activity, see supra
III.A. See Rivera-Velázquez v. Regan, 102 F.4th 1, 17 n.11 (1st
Cir. 2024). Hasbro contends that none of the actions alleged in
the amended complaint are adverse for purposes of section
2000e-2(a)(1), asserting that most amount to nothing more than
"petty slights" and "minor annoyances." Morales-Vallellanos, 605
F.3d at 36 (quoting Burlington N., 548 U.S. at 68). With respect
to the warnings, Hasbro argues that they are not actionably adverse
because the plaintiffs have not alleged that they were accompanied
by any "tangible consequences." Bhatti v. Trs. of Bos. Univ., 659
F.3d 64, 73 (1st Cir. 2011). In making this argument, Hasbro
discounts the plaintiffs' allegations that they were denied
promotions because of the warnings on the basis that the amended
complaint failed to identify "promotion[s] for which [the
plaintiffs] were qualified and would have applied but for their
written warnings." And it dismisses DeAngelis's allegation that
her job was given to someone else while she was on leave for
similar reasons, contending that the plaintiffs have not detailed
precisely how DeAngelis's role changed when she returned.
- 23 - The absence of "the exact details of each incident,"
Rodríguez-Vives, 743 F.3d at 286, which might prove fatal later in
the litigation, see, e.g., Zabala-De Jesus v. Sanofi-Aventis P.R.,
Inc., 959 F.3d 423, 430-31 (1st Cir. 2020), does not render the
plaintiffs' discrimination claims implausible. Hasbro's failure
to select the plaintiffs for certain promotions and its giving of
DeAngelis's job to a new hire while she was on leave are
substantially like the sorts of actions that may serve as
predicates for a viable Title VII discrimination claim. See
López-Hernández v. Terumo P.R. LLC, 64 F.4th 22, 28 (1st Cir. 2023)
(failure to promote can predicate Title VII claim); Theidon v.
Harvard Univ., 948 F.3d 477, 495 (1st Cir. 2020) (same, for denial
of tenure); O'Horo v. Bos. Med. Ctr. Corp., 131 F.4th 1, 17-18
(1st Cir. 2025). And the allegations in the amended complaint
concerning these incidents, while not robust, are not so
"threadbare" that they must be discarded as conclusory.
Rodríguez-Vives, 743 F.3d at 286 (quoting Peñalbert-Rosa v.
Fortuño-Burset, 631 F.3d 592, 595 (1st Cir. 2011)). The amended
complaint identified specific promotions denied to the plaintiffs,
even if it did not say much about them, and alleged that
DeAngelis's position was taken away from her, even though she could
have offered more details about her subsequent responsibilities.
The plaintiffs' allegations regarding promotion and
reassignment are sufficient to establish an adverse employment
- 24 - action. If certain allegations, as developed and contextualized
by discovery, are insufficient to constitute adverse actions, the
plaintiffs' discrimination claims, like their retaliation claims,
may be pared down accordingly at summary judgment.5 See Thomas,
120 F.4th at 1337.
Turning to causation, section 2000e-2 requires the
employee's religious observance, belief, or practice to have been
"a 'motivating factor' in an employment decision[]" made by the
employer. Abercrombie, 575 U.S. at 773-74 (quoting 42 U.S.C.
§ 2000e-2(m)); see Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 570 U.S.
338, 343 (2013). To prevail on their discrimination claims, then,
the plaintiffs will have to prove that Hasbro was motivated to
take an adverse employment action against them at least in part
because of the religious beliefs that underpinned their
accommodation requests, and not just because of the accommodation
requests per se or some other innocent reason. See 42 U.S.C.
5 Hasbro separately argues that the plaintiffs cannot maintain a section 2000e-2 claim because it reasonably accommodated their religious beliefs and practices. But the accommodation Hasbro contends that it provided (permitting the plaintiffs to work remotely) was not the accommodation that plaintiffs sought (permitting them to work remotely most of the time, and to come into the office as needed), and Hasbro has developed no argument that the latter was unreasonable. Regardless, even if Hasbro had provided the plaintiffs the requested accommodation, that would not render implausible the amended complaint's separate allegations that Hasbro had actively discriminated against the plaintiffs because of their religious beliefs.
- 25 - § 2000e-2(a); Stratton, 113 F.4th at 38 ("Put broadly, Title VII's
substantive provision protects against discrimination based on who
one is (i.e., a member of a protected class) while the retaliation
provision protects what one does (i.e., engages in protected
conduct)."). And, to survive Hasbro's motion to dismiss, the
plaintiffs' amended complaint must contain sufficient facts to
make an inference of religiously motivated discrimination
plausible. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e(j), 2000-2(a)(1); Waleyko v.
Phelan, 146 F.4th 89, 95 (1st Cir. 2025).
Seizing on the paucity of factual allegations suggesting
such a discriminatory motive, Hasbro asserts that the plaintiffs
have failed adequately to allege causation. It contends that the
plaintiffs have offered nothing more than conclusory -- and
therefore implausible -- assertions of a causal connection between
their religious beliefs and the allegedly adverse actions they
purportedly suffered.
On this point, the amended complaint is borderline. Not
atypically in Title VII cases, the amended complaint lacks
smoking-gun allegations of Hasbro's animus. See Theidon, 948 F.3d
at 495. But the plaintiffs appear to claim, in part, that Hasbro
used the alleged violations of company policy at the June charity
event as a pretext to discriminate against them based on their
religious beliefs. As explained earlier, plaintiffs allege that
Hasbro had taken no action in connection with that incident in the
- 26 - roughly three months before the plaintiffs requested religious
accommodations for the vaccination requirement. Then, just about
two weeks after Tomaselli made her request -- and over four weeks
after DeAngelis's request -- Hasbro issued them written warnings.
Unlike other protected characteristics, such as race or
sex, one's religious beliefs often are not readily apparent to an
employer. See Geraci v. Moody-Tottrup, Int'l, 82 F.3d 578, 581
(3d Cir. 1996) ("An employee's religion . . . is often unknown to
the employer . . . ."). Here, Hasbro may not have learned about
the plaintiffs' particular religious beliefs and
practices -- which concerned then-current events and views about
those events that not all Christians shared -- until they were
disclosed to the company in their accommodation requests.
Thus, for reasons similar to those provided for the
retaliation claims, we conclude that, based on (1) Hasbro's
initial delay in enforcing company policy; (2) the temporal
proximity of the plaintiffs' disclosure of their particular
religious beliefs to the alleged adverse employment action based
on the claimed policy violation; and (3) the arguably
disproportionate nature of the punishment for the violation, the
plaintiffs have plausibly pleaded that they suffered actionable
religious discrimination. See Gomez-Gonzalez v. Rural
Opportunities, Inc., 626 F.3d 654, 662-63 (1st Cir. 2010) ("Pretext
can be shown by such weaknesses, implausibilities,
- 27 - inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contradictions in the
employer's proffered legitimate reasons for its action that a
reasonable factfinder could rationally find them unworthy of
credence and hence infer that the employer did not act for the
asserted non-discriminatory reasons." (quoting Morgan v. Hilti,
Inc., 108 F.3d 1319, 1323 (10th Cir.1997))). And nothing in the
complaint indicates that Hasbro has asserted another basis for its
actions, which would provide an obvious non-discriminatory
explanation for its conduct. Cf. Frith, 38 F.4th at 275.
III.
Because the plaintiffs have alleged plausible claims of
retaliation and religious discrimination, we vacate the order
dismissing plaintiffs' claims under Title VII, the Rhode Island
Civil Rights Act, and the Rhode Island Fair Employment Practices
Act and remand for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion. Costs are awarded to the plaintiffs.
So ordered.
- 28 -