A Win for Religious Exemptions

In a win for religious freedom, Liberty Counsel just settled a $10.3 million class-action lawsuit on behalf of 500 current and former healthcare workers who were denied religious exemptions regarding the COVID shot mandate. Of the 500 workers involved in the suit, half had quit or were let go and the rest took the shot. Because of this unlawful discrimination, North Shore University Health will pay $10,337,500 in compensation to these health care employees who were punished for their religious belief that it is wrong to receive an injection associated with aborted fetal cells.

As late as last September, the hospital system had been prepared to accommodate employees who sought a religious exemption by letting them undergo routine testing as opposed to getting vaccinated. But in October,  North Shore suddenly changed its vaccination policy on a whim, causing more than a dozen employees to file a class-action suit in Illinois federal court to block the hospital system’s vaccine mandate for its workers.

What was even more ludicrous about the hospital’s sudden decision is that patients, visitors and even employees of other hospital groups that provide medical or religious accommodations to their employees were still permitted to enter North Shore facilities..  Furthermore, under the new policy, former employees, fired for being unvaccinated, were still permitted to visit a North Shore patient (even if that ex-employee remained unvaccinated). Where is the logic?

The plaintiffs suffered a set-back last December when U.S. District Judge John F. Kness, an Illinois federal judge, refused to grant a preliminary injunction that would hold off the hospital’s vaccine mandate. He did, however, allow the employees (plaintiffs) to continue the suit under pseudonyms “given the charged atmosphere concerning vaccinations and vaccine mandates” and the workers’ showing of the harms they would suffer should their identities be revealed during the ongoing litigation.

But now their fortitude is being rewarded. Although the lawsuit settlement still needs to be approved by the federal judge overseeing the case, the positive terms of the lawsuit include:

-A change to North Shore policy which will ensure unvaccinated employees are able to apply for a religious exemption allowing them to work. In the past, requests for religious exemption were denied across the board rather than being considered, as they should be, on a case-by-case basis.

-North Shore will also change its unlawful “no religious exemptions” policy and make it consistent with the law and provide religious accommodations in every position across its numerous facilities.

-No position in any North Shore facility will be considered off-limits to unvaccinated employees with approved religious exemptions.

-Those who were let go because they refused to get COVID shots on religious grounds are eligible for reinstatement.

-An estimated payout of $25,000 to those employees who quit or were fired due to the vaccine mandate

-an estimated additional $20,000 to the 13 original plaintiffs.

-Workers who had filed religious exemption requests, but then decided to get the shots, will receive an estimated $3,000 each.

So what’s in it for Liberty Counsel which invested resources in terms of significant attorney’s fees and costs to bring this suit against North Shore in order to hold it accountable for its actions? Liberty Counsel will receive 20 percent of the settlement ($2,067,500) which is actually far below the standard 33 percent in cases like this.

The sweeping mask and vaccine mandates that became a part of daily life in 2020 have been unsettling. They’ve caused many of us to have our backbone tested as our right to personal and medical freedom have been challenged in a new way.  It’s unfortunate that the right to medical freedom was not enshrined in the Constitution and, at the same time, surreal that Founding Father *Benjamin Rush had the foresight to argue for it:

“Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of Men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of this republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.’

However, this historic, first of its kind, class-action settlement of healthcare workers against a private employer encourages individuals everywhere who desire to make their own choices about what is or is not injected into their body. Let’s take a moment to enjoy this victory, thank those who fought for it, and thank our heavenly Father.

*Benjamin Rush was a Founding Father of the United States who signed the United States Declaration of Independence, and a civic leader in Philadelphia, where he was a physician, politician, social reformer, humanitarian, educator, and the founder of Dickinson College.