Dive Temporary:
- The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, illegally refused a safety guard’s spiritual request to be exempted from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, the U.S. Equal Employment Alternative Fee alleged in a lawsuit filed Wednesday (EEOC v. Mayo Clinic).
- The guard, a member of Assemblies of God Church, submitted the request in late 2021, shortly after the hospital system mandated staff obtain the vaccine. He defined his beliefs, cited Bible passages, and agreed to masking and testing, in line with the criticism. The hospital denied his request and mentioned it will hearth him if he didn’t obtain the vaccine, EEOC mentioned.
- Mayo Clinic declined to remark, citing pending litigation.
Dive Perception:
Whereas information about vaccine mandates has died down considerably for the reason that first few years of the pandemic, employers are nonetheless contending with failure-to-accommodate lawsuits, which frequently allege spiritual rights violations.
For EEOC, this pursuit will not be essentially political; the company below the Biden administration additionally filed failure-to-accommodate lawsuits associated to vaccines. Final August, for instance, EEOC sued producer AG Gear Co., alleging the corporate fired 10 staff with out contemplating their spiritual or medical exemption requests.
Likewise, in April 2023, it sued a Michigan-based hospital system for refusing to rent a employee after he wouldn’t get the flu shot, regardless of his spiritual lodging request. The primary case continues to be working its approach by way of the courts, whereas the latter led to a $50,000 settlement.
Such lawsuits can lead to hefty payouts. Late final yr, for instance, a Michigan jury awarded a former Blue Cross Blue Defend of Michigan worker $12.69 million after the corporate refused her exemption request after which fired her. In April, the plaintiff and Blue Cross filed courtroom paperwork requesting to vacate the jury verdict, dismiss post-trial motions and dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, suggesting a personal settlement had been reached.
“Workers have a proper to request affordable spiritual lodging with out worry of punishment or termination, together with for vaccination insurance policies,” EEOC Appearing Chair Andrea Lucas mentioned in a Thursday information launch saying the Mayo Clinic lawsuit. In April, Lucas chosen the previous president of the Christian Employers Alliance to be her chief of workers, doubtlessly signaling a larger deal with spiritual rights for the company.
Employers ought to take spiritual lodging requests critically, attorneys have warned. This particularly applies within the wake of Groff v. DeJoy, a U.S. Supreme Court docket case that raised the bar for employers’ undue hardship claims.
