A group of workers at Dignity Health say their rights were violated when their employer refused their request for religious exemption from the Covid vaccine mandate, and fired them.
"Each Plaintiff requested an exemption from defendant's Covid-19 vaccination policy as a reasonable accommodation to their sincerely held religious beliefs and/or medical condition," says the lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court. "In response to Plaintiffs’ respective requests for religious exemption and accommodation, defendants denied each of the requests."
Initially, Dignity allowed the employees to continue working with CDC-recommended masking and testing but eventually fired them, the lawsuit states. It says the firings violated the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.
"Employers are not and should not be in the business of deciding whether a person holds religious beliefs for the proper reasons, and they should limit
the inquiry to whether or not the religious belief system is sincerely held; and should not review the motives or reasons for holding the belief in the first place," the lawsuit states.
The employees seek compensation for lost wages and benefits, punitive damages and legal fees.
They are represented by Daniel R. Watkins and Charles M. Heintz, of Watkins & Letofsky, of Santa Ana.
Davy v. Dignity Health, San Francisco Superior Court, CGC-23-609988