Employment – Vaccination – Religious objection

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Where a defendant hospital, after adopting a mandatory vaccination policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, denied a request for an accommodation sought by a plaintiff employee who asserted a religious objection to taking the vaccine, a judgment dismissing a religious discrimination complaint later filed by the plaintiff should be vacated because she has sufficiently pleaded a religious belief that conflicts with receiving the COVID-19 vaccine as required by the policy.

“In 2021, Plaintiff Amanda J. Bazinet worked as an executive office manager at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Milton, Massachusetts. In response to COVID-19, the Hospital adopted a mandatory vaccine policy. Bazinet asserted a religious objection to taking the vaccine and sought an accommodation. The Hospital rejected Bazinet’s accommodation request, which led to the termination of her employment. In due course, Bazinet brought a civil action asserting, among other claims, that the Hospital committed religious discrimination in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §2000e et seq., and the Massachusetts anti-discrimination law, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B, §4 (2018) (‘the religious discrimination claims’).

“On its own motion, the district court dismissed the religious discrimination claims for failing to state a claim. … The court ruled that Bazinet’s complaint failed to allege that she maintained a sincerely held religious belief that prevented her from taking the COVID-19 vaccine. Alternatively, the court held that, as a matter of law, the Hospital would suffer an undue hardship by granting Bazinet’s request for an accommodation from the vaccine requirement.

“Bazinet appeals the dismissal of her religious discrimination claims. We vacate the district court’s order. The complaint sufficiently alleged that taking the vaccine would violate Bazinet’s religious beliefs. Moreover, determining whether an undue hardship would result from the Hospital excusing Bazinet from the vaccine requirement cannot be accomplished at this preliminary stage of the litigation. …

“As already mentioned, the Hospital employed Bazinet as an executive office manager when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Bazinet continued to work for the Hospital at the ‘zenith’ of the pandemic, relying on the Hospital’s assurances that wearing masks would provide adequate protection.

“In August 2021, the Hospital announced its ‘Mandatory Vaccine Policy.’ …

“The district court ruled that Bazinet’s claim foundered from the start because she failed to allege that she maintained a religious practice that conflicted with the Hospital’s mandatory vaccine requirement. The court considered the complaint wanting because its text offered nothing more than an assertion that Bazinet ‘has sincerely held religious beliefs which place her in conflict with the provisions of the … Policy and prevent her from receiving the injections’ required thereunder.

“We need not determine whether such an unelaborated assertion may be insufficient on its own to allege a religious practice or belief in support of a religious discrimination claim because the district court also should have considered the documents expressly referenced in the complaint in which Bazinet requested a religious accommodation. Thus, the information in these documents should have been included when evaluating the sufficiency of the complaint. … The Hospital acknowledged this point both in its brief and at oral argument.

“In her accommodation request, Bazinet explained her religious objection to being vaccinated. She stated her understanding that presently available COVID-19 vaccines were developed using fetal cell lines that originated from aborted fetuses. She also explained that taking the vaccine would make her complicit in the performance of abortions which would be ‘an aberration to [her] Christian faith.’ Bazinet provided numerous quotations from religious sources that she says support her view. Accepting those allegations as true for present purposes, she has sufficiently pleaded a religious belief that conflicts with receiving the COVID-19 vaccine as required by the Policy.

“The Hospital says otherwise, relying on Kiel v. Mayo Clinic Health Sys. Southeast Minnesota, 685 F. Supp. 3d 770 (D. Minn. 2023). …

“After the Hospital filed its brief in this Court, the Eighth Circuit reversed Kiel. Ringhofer v. Mayo Clinic, Ambulance, 102 F.4th 894 (8th Cir. 2024). The Eighth Circuit properly rejected Kiel‘s rationale because the fact that many Christians have elected to receive the vaccine does not undermine a particular employee’s religious beliefs on the subject. … The law does not require that a religious practice or belief at issue be ‘acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others.’ …

“Bazinet, like the employees in Ringhofer, grounded her objection to taking the vaccine in a religious belief connecting the COVID-19 vaccine to opposition to abortion. Whether few or many share that religious view is irrelevant. For similar reasons, it is also irrelevant at this stage of the litigation that the Hospital tells us that Bazinet is mistaken in believing that the COVID-19 vaccines were developed from fetal tissue obtained from aborted fetuses. That the Hospital disputes Bazinet’s factual foundation for her belief about the development of the vaccines does not change the religious character of the belief.”

Bazinet v. Beth Israel Lahey Health, Inc., et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 01-174-24) (21 pages) (Aframe, J.) Appealed from a decision by Kelley, J., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Richard Cullin Chambers Jr. and Joseph Spinale, with whom Chambers and Spinale were on brief for the plaintiff-appellant; Scott Alan Roberts, with whom Samuel R. Gates, Tavish M. Brown and Hirsch Roberts Weinstein, LLP were on brief, for the defendants-appellees (Docket No. 24-1148) (Aug. 13, 2024).

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