Key Takeaways
A Christian employee at Thermo Fisher Scientific is suing the company, alleging that its failure to offer a fossil-fuel-free 401(k) investment option violates his religious rights.
Andrew Hartley says his Christian faith requires him to care for the environment and that financially benefiting from fossil fuel companies conflicts with those beliefs.
The lawsuit relies on Title VII religious accommodation protections and the Supreme Court's 2023 Groff v. DeJoy decision, which strengthened the standard employers must meet to deny religious accommodations.
The case could test whether religious accommodation requirements extend to the investment choices offered through employer-sponsored retirement plans.
Can a 401(k) Investment Conflict With an Employee's Religion?
Can an employer be required to change its 401(k) investment options because of an employee's religious beliefs? A new federal lawsuit could help answer that question.
Andrew Hartley, a statistical science director at Thermo Fisher Scientific, filed suit against his employer on August 4, 2026. Hartley alleges that the company's retirement plan effectively forces him to choose between fully participating in his workplace benefits and following his Christian convictions against financially supporting fossil fuel companies.
The case, Hartley v. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. It alleges religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and New York state law.
How Does His Christian Faith Relate to Fossil Fuel Investing?
Hartley is a member of the United Methodist Church and says environmental stewardship is an important part of his Christian faith.
According to the lawsuit, he believes Christians have a responsibility to care for the Earth and that personally profiting from companies he believes contribute to climate change would violate his religious obligations. His complaint cites biblical teachings about stewardship of creation as part of the basis for that belief.
Hartley says those beliefs influence other parts of his life as well. He follows a plant-based diet, frequently travels by bicycle instead of car, supports environmental organizations, and attempts to keep his personal finances away from fossil fuel companies.
Importantly, the lawsuit does not depend on proving that every United Methodist shares Hartley's exact position on fossil fuel investments. Workplace religious discrimination law can protect sincerely held individual religious beliefs even when every member of the same faith does not observe them in precisely the same way.
What Religious Accommodation Did Hartley Request?
Hartley says he first asked Thermo Fisher in October 2024 to add a fossil-fuel-free investment option to its 401(k) plan.
According to the complaint, the equity investment options available through the plan contained significant investments in fossil fuel companies. Hartley asked the company to add one alternative fund that would allow him to participate without violating his beliefs and later provided examples of funds he considered acceptable.
Thermo Fisher initially told him that his request did not meet its criteria for a religious accommodation, according to the lawsuit. Hartley says he continued pursuing the request and sent additional information but did not receive a substantive resolution.
He later filed a religious discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In July 2026, the EEOC gave him the right to pursue the matter in court.
Hartley is asking the court to require Thermo Fisher to provide an accommodation, engage with him over future accommodation requests, and compensate him for alleged financial and other damages.
Thermo Fisher has declined to comment publicly on the pending litigation.
Why Does the Supreme Court's Groff v. DeJoy Decision Matter?
Hartley's case relies heavily on a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that strengthened protections for employees seeking religious accommodations.
In Groff v. DeJoy, a Christian postal worker sought an accommodation that would allow him to avoid working on Sundays because of his Sabbath observance.
For decades, employers often relied on a relatively low standard for showing that a religious accommodation would create an "undue hardship." The Supreme Court rejected that interpretation in Groff.
Employers must now show that the burden of an accommodation would be substantial in the overall context of their business. The cost and practical effect of the particular accommodation must be considered.
Hartley's attorneys argue that adding one fossil-fuel-free investment option would not create the kind of substantial burden required to reject his accommodation under Groff.
Whether a court agrees remains an open question. Religious accommodations more commonly involve scheduling, dress, grooming, or workplace duties. Applying the same law to the investment menu of an employer-sponsored retirement plan would take the issue into relatively new territory.
Can Employers Offer Fossil-Fuel-Free 401(k) Funds?
Employers can offer investment funds that consider environmental factors, but retirement plan fiduciaries also have obligations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, better known as ERISA.
ERISA generally requires plan fiduciaries to act prudently and in the financial interests of plan participants. That does not mean an employer is automatically prohibited from offering an ESG or fossil-fuel-free investment.
Department of Labor guidance states that environmental factors, including climate-related risks, may be considered when they are relevant to an investment's expected risk and return. At the same time, fiduciaries generally cannot sacrifice participants' financial interests simply to advance an unrelated environmental or social objective.
The Department of Labor has also emphasized in 2026 that ERISA focuses on the fiduciary's decision-making process, not simply whether an investment later outperforms or underperforms. Poor performance by itself does not necessarily establish that an investment was imprudently selected.
That makes the question more complicated than whether a "green" fund performs better or worse than a conventional one.
A plan fiduciary would need to evaluate factors such as fees, diversification, risk, expected returns, and the suitability of the investment for participants. Whether Thermo Fisher could add a qualifying fossil-fuel-free option without creating an undue hardship is one of the issues Hartley's case could bring into focus.
Could Religious Beliefs Affect Other 401(k) Investments?
The implications could extend beyond environmentalism.
If Hartley's argument succeeds, employees with other sincerely held religious beliefs could potentially seek retirement options that avoid investments they consider religiously objectionable.
Some religious investors, for example, seek funds that screen companies based on alcohol, gambling, weapons, interest-bearing financial activities, abortion, pornography, or other practices that conflict with their faith.
Muslim investors may also seek investments structured in accordance with Islamic financial principles, including restrictions involving interest.
That does not necessarily mean employers would be required to satisfy every requested investment restriction. Employers can still deny religious accommodations that meet the legal standard for undue hardship.
The more fundamental question raised by Hartley's lawsuit is whether an employee's retirement investments can qualify as a workplace practice requiring religious accommodation in the first place.
What Could the Fossil-Fuel-Free 401(k) Lawsuit Change?
Hartley's attorneys describe the lawsuit as a first-of-its-kind attempt to apply the Supreme Court's strengthened religious accommodation standard to fossil-fuel-free retirement investing.
A ruling in Hartley's favor would not automatically give every worker the right to choose any investment they want. But it could establish that employers sometimes have a duty to consider modifications to retirement plans when existing options conflict with an employee's sincerely held religious beliefs.
A ruling against him could establish limits on how far workplace religious accommodation requirements extend into employee benefit plans.
Either outcome could make this an important test of an increasingly complicated question: How far must an employer go to accommodate religious beliefs when those beliefs affect not only how an employee works, but also where their money is invested?
What Happens Next?
As of August 26, 2026, Hartley's lawsuit remains in its early stages. No court has ruled that Thermo Fisher discriminated against him or that employers are required to provide fossil-fuel-free retirement investments.
For now, the case represents a novel attempt to connect two areas of law that do not often intersect: workplace religious accommodation and retirement-plan investment selection.
How the court handles that intersection could determine whether religious freedom protections established in cases involving Sabbath observance and other workplace practices can also reach the investments employees are offered through their 401(k)s.
