Hospital Will Pay $1 Million to Christian Employees Fired for Refusing COVID Vaccine

Mercyhealth, a hospital system in Illinois and Wisconsin, has agreed to pay more than $1 million and has offered reinstatement to employees it fired for refusing on religious grounds to comply with the company’s COVID-19 shot mandate. The settlement follows a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) investigation that found “reasonable cause to believe” that Mercyhealth discriminated against the employees based on their religion by denying their religious accommodations to the experimental shots.

During the COVID mandates, Liberty Counsel assisted many Mercyhealth employees whose religious accommodations had been denied. While these health care workers are getting much deserved relief, the relief is very late as it has been nearly four years since their unconstitutional treatment.

The Trump administration has been proactively defending religious liberty with various executive orders, such as establishing the Religious Liberty Commission and committing to eradicating anti-Christian bias in the federal government. As a result, Acting EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas noted that this settlement was only “the beginning” in dealing with religious discrimination in the workplace.

“I [am] committed to focusing our agency’s resources to address the very real problem of religious discrimination, and this resolution is just the beginning,” stated Lucas. “This is an example of what our agency can accomplish when we work with employers to ensure that the doors of our workplaces are equally open to religious employees. I am proud of the monetary relief that we have obtained here, and I am equally proud that these employees—who remained committed to their religious beliefs and practice at great personal cost—will receive job offers.”

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While the EEOC found that the company denied religious accommodations to some employees, it also found that the company discriminated against a “class of similarly situated employees across all of its facilities between September 2021 and May 2022.” According to a press release, the EEOC found that Mercyhealth denied other employees the opportunity altogether to request religious accommodations. Instead, Mercyhealth decided to either terminate their employment or withhold a monthly fee from their pay. The investigation levied charges that alleged employees who were denied religious accommodations and refused the COVID-19 shot could continue working only if they signed a form stipulating Mercyhealth could deduct a $60 monthly fee from their pay, called a “vaccine incentive charge.” The EEOC stated that the employees who did not get the shot and did not sign the wage deduction form were fired without regard for their religious objections.

“Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on religion,” stated the EEOC. Title VII explicitly requires employers to consider reasonable requests for religious accommodation and can only deny them when an accommodation would burden the employer with an undue hardship.

The settlement involves a three-year agreement that requires Mercyhealth to provide back pay, compensatory damages, and job offers to the aggrieved individuals. The agreement also requires Mercyhealth to “recirculate its policies, train human resources personnel and those who exercise decision-making authority on religious accommodation requests, and report to the EEOC about religious accommodation requests and decisions related to any system-wide vaccination program.”

In a different case, Liberty Counsel represents three New York health care workers who were denied religious accommodations and fired for refusing to take the COVID shot due to their deeply held religious convictions. In Does 1-3 v. Hochul, the health care workers have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review their case where New York implemented a law requiring healthcare employers to ignore Title VII’s command to reasonably accommodate religious beliefs. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, contrary to other circuits, denied the health care workers’ claims for religious accommodation and gave precedence to the New York state law over Title VII’s religious protections. Liberty Counsel argues that a state law at odds with Title VII is no law at all, and it must yield to the demands of federal anti-discrimination law. The Supreme Court has slated the case for its September 29 conference where it will decide whether to accept or decline the case.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “This hospital system did not live up to its name and instead was merciless to its faithful and dedicated workers. This class-wide settlement is rightly deserved for these health care employees who were unlawfully discriminated against and denied religious exemptions from the experimental COVID shot. Title VII is the superseding federal law that requires employers to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs unless the employer can show that doing so will result in undue hardship. Employees should never have to choose between their faith and their job.”

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