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Imagine being handed a retirement plan menu where every single option quietly funds the very thing your conscience rebels against. That's the predicament at the heart of a new lawsuit, where a devout Christian employee says his employer forced him to choose between his 401(k) and his faith. The Thermo Fisher 401(k) bias suit, filed Tuesday in a New York federal court, accuses the scientific instruments giant of stonewalling a simple request rooted in deeply held religious conviction.

Andrew Hartley, a statistical science director at Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., claims the company discriminated against him and refused to reasonably accommodate his beliefs, violating both Title VII and the New York State Human Rights Law.

A Believer Boxed In by Investment Options

Stewardship of the Earth, Meets a Locked Menu

Hartley, a member of the United Methodist Church, says his faith calls him to protect the planet — a conviction he describes as central to his religious identity, not a passing preference. But Thermo Fisher's 401(k) plan, he says, offers nothing but investment options tangled up with fossil fuel companies, leaving him no way to save for retirement without funding what he considers "ecologically and socially destructive" industries.

It's a bit like being handed a restaurant menu where every dish contains an ingredient you've sworn off — except the stakes here involve decades of retirement savings, not a single meal.

According to his complaint, Hartley asked Thermo Fisher to add a fossil fuel-free investment option and even supplied a list of viable alternatives. What followed, he says, was silence.

A Legal Shield Sharpened by the Supreme Court

Hartley's case leans heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Groff v. DeJoy, which raised the bar for employers seeking to deny religious accommodations. Under that decision, companies must now show that granting an accommodation would cause "substantial" harm — not just minor inconvenience — to justify a denial.

Hartley argues Thermo Fisher doesn't come close to clearing that bar. Fossil-fuel-screened investment funds, he notes, are widely available, low-fee, and already offered by countless other employers.

"Adding such a fund to Thermo Fisher's menu would be neither difficult nor expensive," Hartley wrote in his complaint, framing the request as a minor tweak rather than a major overhaul.

A Life Built Around Conviction

Hartley's lawsuit paints a portrait of someone whose beliefs extend well beyond Sunday services. He follows a plant-based diet, has swapped nearly all car travel for cycling, and carefully steers his personal banking and investment choices away from fossil fuel companies. He also donates to environmental causes and helps lead environmental initiatives through his church — a lifestyle assembled piece by piece around a single guiding principle.

A Paper Trail of Requests and Silence

The timeline Hartley lays out reads like a slow-motion standoff. In October 2024, he formally asked Thermo Fisher's human resources department to add a fossil fuel-free option to the 401(k) plan. Days later, the company's accommodations team rejected the request, claiming it didn't qualify as a religious accommodation. When Hartley refused to let the matter drop, the company said its investment committee would follow up.

Then came more waiting. In January 2025, Hartley sent a detailed letter laying out the legal basis for his request, complete with specific examples of compliant investment options. According to the complaint, Thermo Fisher never responded. Hartley eventually filed a discrimination charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in December — a move that set the stage for Tuesday's lawsuit.

The Cost of Staying True to Belief

In the meantime, Hartley says he's been forced to manage his retirement savings independently, sidestepping the company plan entirely. That workaround comes at a price: higher fees and the loss of the monitoring and recordkeeping services other plan participants receive automatically.

A Case With Broader Stakes

Thermo Fisher, headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, declined to comment Tuesday. The company, which develops technology, pharmaceutical and biotechnology products, employs more than 26,000 workers across the U.S. and Canada.

Ben Segal, an attorney at ClientEarth, the environmental law nonprofit representing Hartley, framed the case as bigger than one employee's retirement account. "Tens of millions of Americans — of many faiths — believe that protecting the planet is the defining moral obligation of our time, and the law is increasingly clear that conviction," Segal said, arguing Hartley's beliefs deserve the same legal protection as any other sincerely held religious belief.

"The Supreme Court strengthened religious accommodation rights for every American worker, including the millions who see the destruction of our climate as a profound moral wrong," Segal added. "This case is the first to put that principle to the test, and a victory would give every worker in America the legal footing to demand the same."

Hartley is represented by Kathleen Konopka of ClientEarth USA Inc. Counsel information for Thermo Fisher Scientific was not immediately available.

Why This Case Could Ripple Far Beyond One Company

If Hartley prevails, the case could open the door for employees nationwide to demand similar accommodations — turning what began as one man's quiet request into a potential blueprint for how faith and finance intersect in America's workplaces.