Children’s Hospital Pays $45K To Resolve COVID Vaccine Religious Discrimination Suit


Pandemic’s End Doesn’t End COVID-19 Employer Headaches

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Inc. (“CHOA”) is paying $45,000 to settle a religious discrimination lawsuit arising from its failure to grant a religious exemption from its COVID-19 vaccination requirements for a maintenance worker. The lawsuit highlights the continuing importance of all employers to use care when handling request for religious accommodation to vaccine or other workplace requirements.

The lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) arises from the 2019 denial of a request for a religious exemption to CHOA’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate made by a maintenance worker. CHOA previously had granted the same employee a religious exemption for vaccine mandates in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, however, CHOA denied the employee’s request for a religious accommodation and fired him, despite the employee working primarily outside and his position requiring limited interaction with the public or staff the EEOC said.

The EEOC alleged the denial of the vaccine exemption violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits firing an employee because of their religion and requires that employers reasonably accommodate the sincerely held religious beliefs of their employees.

Under the consent degree entered in Ciil Action No. 1:22-CV-04953-MLB-RDC in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, CHOA will pay $45,000 in monetary damages to the former employee. CHOA will also adjust its influenza vaccine religious exemption policy to presume the exemption eligibility of employees with remote workstations or who otherwise work away from the presence of other employees or patients, and to protect the ability of such employees to seek alternative positions within CHOA if their religious exemption request is denied. The decree further provides that CHOA will train relevant employees on religious accommodation rights under Title VII.

The EEOC announcement of the consent degree alerts employers of the continuing need to use care when handling religious accommodation requests to vaccine or other workplace policies. “ It is the responsibility of an employer to accommodate its employees’ sincerely held religious beliefs,” the announcement quotes Marcus G. Keegan, the regional attorney for the EEOC’s Atlanta District Office. “Unless doing so would require more than a minimal cost, an employer may not deny requested religious accommodations, let alone revoke those previously granted without issue. The EEOC is pleased that the employee has been compensated and that CHOA has agreed to take steps to ensure that it meets its obligation to evaluate religious accommodation requests in a manner consistent with federal law.”

Likewise, the announcement quotes Darrell Graham, district director of the Atlanta office, as saying , “The arbitrary denial of religious accommodations drives religious discrimination in the workplace. The EEOC remains committed to enforcing the laws that protect employees’ religious practices.”

CHOA’s denial of the exemption happened at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Federal COVID – 19 vaccination mandates now are all ended.  While federal mandates initially dictated COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of participation in Medicare by healthcare providers, for government contractors and others, the original mandates were quickly revised to include religious exemption requirements before court rules, agency action and the end of the Pandemic put an end to these mandates. During and after the federal mandates, however, employers were required to negotiate a minefield of competing concerns and potential liabilities when deciding what and how to mandate and enforce safety, leave and other rules without running afoul of employment discrimination and whistleblower claims. See, e.g., EEOC COVID Guidance, Enforcement Highlights Need To Brace For COVID-Related ADA & Other Claims; Texas Private Employer COVID-19 Vaccination Mandates Prohibited Effective February 6, 2024; IRS Warns Of Fraudulent Promotion of COVID Employee Retention Credits; OSHA Enforces Whistleblower Rights Of Worker Terminated For Expressing COVID-19 Safety Concerns; Biden-⁠Harris Administration Ending COVID-⁠19 Vaccination Requirements For Federal Employees, Contractors, International Travelers, Head Start Educators & CMS-Certified Facilities; SCOTUS To Hear Oral Arguments on OSHA COVID-19 Vaccination Rule Enforceability On January 7; COVID-19 Vaccination Rule Injunctions Leave Employers With Significant Liability Challenges Even As OSHA Extends Comment Period on OSHA COVID-19 Vaccine ETS; Manage Heightened Retaliation Exposures Arising From COVID-19 Safety, Return-To-Work & Other Practices

While the federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate is gone, many healthcare and other employers continue to impose mandate requirements with appropriate disability and religious exemptions as part of their workplace safety and patient safety protocols. Additionally, beyond the Covid – 19 vaccination protocols, many workplace vaccination and other rules also can create conflicts with certain religious beliefs that prompt religious accommodation requests.

Employers administering these vaccination, and other policies must keep in mind that the duty to offer religious accommodation and the EEOC emphasis on enforcing accommodation rights for workers whose deeply held religious beliefs conflict with workplace rules lives on. The perils remain, even if the requirement is supported by well, established patient or workplace safety protocols. Employers need to evaluate and be prepared to defend their inability to accommodate the safety and other concerns underlying the workplace mandate against a potential religious discrimination challenge.

Employers must remain diligent in their management of responses to request for accommodations keeping in mind that EEOC COVID-19 – era guidance imposes a heavy burden on an employer to justify its refusal of a request. For this reason, employers that receive a request for religious of accommodation from an employee should seek the advice of experienced legal counsel as soon as possible if any question exists about whether the employer will grant the request. Employers also should ensure their policies clearly communicate the availability of religious and disability accommodation from these other requirements, establish clear protocols for requesting and processing those requests and prohibit and prevent retaliation.

To promote defensibility, employers also should consult with experienced legal counsel about the use of attorney, client, privilege, and other protocols to prevent or minimize the risk that discussions and actions in response to, or following a request for accommodation creates evidence of discrimination or retaliation.

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We hope this update is helpful. For more information about these or other health or other legal, management or public policy developments, please contact the author Cynthia Marcotte Stamer via e-mail or via telephone at (214) 452 -8297. 

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About the Author

Recognized by her peers as a Martindale-Hubble “AV-Preeminent” (Top 1%) and “Top Rated Lawyer” with special recognition LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell® as “LEGAL LEADER™ Texas Top Rated Lawyer” in Health Care Law and Labor and Employment Law; as among the “Best Lawyers In Dallas” for her work in the fields of “Labor & Employment,” “Tax: ERISA & Employee Benefits,” “Health Care” and “Business and Commercial Law” by D Magazine, Cynthia Marcotte Stamer is a practicing attorney board certified in labor and employment law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and management consultant, author, public policy advocate and lecturer widely known for 35 plus years of health industry and other management work, public policy leadership and advocacy, coaching, teachings, and publications.

A Fellow in the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel, Co-Chair of the American Bar Association (“ABA”) International Section Life Sciences and Health Committee and Vice-Chair Elect of its International Employment Law Committee, Chair-Elect of the ABA TIPS Section Medicine & Law Committee, Past Chair of the ABA Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group, Scribe for the ABA JCEB Annual Agency Meeting with HHS-OCR, past chair of the ABA RPTE Employee Benefits & Other Compensation Group and current co-Chair of its Welfare Benefit Committee, and Chair of the ABA Intellectual Property Section Law Practice Management Committee, Ms. Stamer is most widely recognized for her decades of pragmatic, leading-edge work, scholarship and thought leadership on heath benefit and other healthcare and life science, managed care and insurance and other workforce and staffing, employee benefits, safety, contracting, quality assurance, compliance and risk management, and other legal, public policy and operational concerns in the healthcare and life sciences, employee benefits, managed care and insurance, technology and other related industries. At her career, she has worked extensively with healthcare and other employers to manage discrimination and other workplace and employee benefit compliance and risks. She speaks and publishes extensively on these and other related compliance issues.

Ms. Stamer’s work throughout her career has focused heavily on working with health care and managed care, life sciences, health and other employee benefit plan, insurance and financial services and other public and private organizations and their technology, data, and other service providers and advisors domestically and internationally with legal and operational compliance and risk management, performance and workforce management, regulatory and public policy and other legal and operational concerns. Scribe for the ABA JCEB Annual Meeting with the HHS Office of Civil Rights, her experience includes extensive involvement throughout her career in advising health care and life sciences and other clients about preventing, investigating and defending EEOC, DOJ, OFCCP and other Civil Rights Act, Section 1557 and other HHS, HUD, banking, and other federal and state discrimination investigations, audits, lawsuits and other enforcement actions as well as advocacy before Congress and regulators regarding federal and state equal opportunity, equity and other laws. 

For more information about Ms. Stamer or her health industry and other experience and involvements, see www.cynthiastamer.com or contact Ms. Stamer via telephone at (214) 452-8297 or via e-mail here. 

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2023 at 11:33 AM and is filed under Academic Medicine, Accommodation, ADA, Affirmative Action, board of directors, Corporate Compliance, corporate governance, COVID-19, Disability, Disability Discrimination, Discrimination, Diversity, EEOC, employee, Employee Benefits, Employee Handbook, Employer, Employers, Employment, Employment Discrimination, Employment Policies, Employment Termination, health Care, health centers, health plan, Health Plans, HR, Human Resources, Insurance, insurers, Internal Controls, Internal Investigations, Managed Care, religious accommodation, Religious Organization, Religous Discrimination, Risk Management, Worker, Workforce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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