A neighborhood hospital worker who was fired after she refused to take the COVID vaccine over non secular grounds — saying her “body is a temple of God” — has received her court docket attraction.
Rachelle Jeune, who was a surgical tech within the UMass Memorial Health Care system, tried to get a non secular exemption from the COVID vax mandate at UMass Memorial again in 2021.
However after the UMass Memorial non secular exemption committee denied her, Jeune was fired for failing to get vaccinated. Consequently, she sued UMass Memorial for non secular discrimination.
A decrease court docket decide first dominated in favor of UMass Memorial and dismissed the lawsuit earlier than the case made it to a Massachusetts appeals court docket — which on Monday reversed the decrease court docket’s ruling.
The Worcester-based UMass Memorial had rejected the non secular exemption, arguing that her beliefs “relied on demonstrably false information.”
“In Massachusetts, an employer must accommodate an employee’s genuine religious beliefs if it can do so without creating an undue hardship,” the appeals court docket wrote in Monday’s ruling. “We conclude that the plaintiff’s said beliefs that her physique is a temple of God and that she prayed to God and acquired a message to not obtain the COVID-19 vaccination have been beliefs {that a} trier of truth may decide have been non secular in nature.
“We further conclude that, on this summary judgment record, UMass Memorial — which has a policy of providing a religious exemption to its vaccination requirement — failed to demonstrate an undue burden as a matter of law,” the appeals court docket added.
Consequently, the appeals court docket dominated in favor of Jeune, who can now carry again her lawsuit.
When Jeune tried to acquire a non secular exemption, she stated getting the vax would oppose her “sacred” non secular beliefs.
“It would prevent me from worshipping my God and it also prevent me from practicing my First Amendment Freedom of Religion,” she stated. “Covid-19 vaccines are not the same as ‘traditional vaccines’. The possibility of Covid-19 genetically altering my body, the body God create in his image, is against my belief… The body is the temple of God; those genetic coding proteins are not natural to human genetic system.”
In response, the UMass Memorial non secular exemption committee denied her a non secular exemption.
Their total rationalization was the next: “This requester asserts they cannot receive the COVID-19 vaccines based on their Christian faith because they will ‘genetically alter’ their body. This is patently false — none of the COVID-19 vaccines genetically alter the body or change a person’s DNA. Reliance on demonstrably false information cannot be a basis for a religious accommodation.”
The appeals court docket, nonetheless, famous that federal case legislation reveals that Jeune’s causes for not taking the vax might be thought-about non secular.
“A plaintiff, like the plaintiff here, who believes that she was created in God’s image and that her body is a temple of God and thus needs God’s approval to expose her body to foreign substances, expresses a religious belief,” the appeals court docket wrote. “Moreover, a plaintiff who prays to God and receives a ‘distinctive message from my God’ acts in accordance with religious beliefs when she follows those divine instructions.”
As a result of UMass Memorial rejected her non secular exemption, the hospital system didn’t decide if an affordable lodging was potential for her, the court docket famous.
UMass Memorial’s coverage was to supply lodging for workers’ non secular beliefs, which “strongly suggests that it can do so without undue hardship,” the appeals court docket wrote.
“Second, the plaintiff testified that three other hospitals had accommodated her not receiving the influenza vaccine,” the justices added. “Third, and most important, UMass Memorial simply failed to provide any evidence of undue hardship.”
UMass Memorial didn’t present any proof that it granted lodging to surgical techs or different working room personnel who acquired medical or non secular exemptions.
“Moreover, one accommodation listed in UMass Memorial’s policy is transfer to another job within the hospital, if available,” the court docket wrote. “UMass Memorial provided no evidence, or even an assertion, that no other jobs were available for the plaintiff.”
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