The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District could be on the hook to pay more than $1.1 million each to six workers who were fired after BART refused to honor their requests to be religiously exempted from BART's Covid vaccine mandate, a jury has ruled.
On Oct. 23, jurors in San Francisco federal court ordered BART to pay more than $7.8 million, collectively, to the group of fired BART workers.
Under the verdict, the jurors said they agreed BART had trampled the religious rights of the six workers. Those workers were identified as Raymond Lockett, Ryan Rivera, Tonya Lewis-Williams, Bradford Mitchell, Rosalind Parker and Szu-Cheng "S.C." Sun.
The jurors awarded Lockett $1.5 million; Lewis-Williams, $1.37 million; Sun, $1.33 million; Parker, $1.28 million; Rivera, $1.18 million; and Mitchell, $1.16 million.
In a statement following the verdict, the plaintiffs' attorneys from the Pacific Justice Institute, of Sacramento, called the verdict a "stunning blow to Bay Area officials who denied every religious accommodation requested by workers to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate."
“These verdicts are seismic—a 7.8 San Francisco legal earthquake," said PJI president Brad Dacus. "This amazing outcome represents so much hard work by our team, perseverance by these clients, and fairness from our judicial system.”
“The rail employees chose to lose their livelihood rather than deny their faith," said PJI attorney Kevin Snider, who led the case for the plaintiffs. "That in itself shows the sincerity and depth of their convictions. After nearly three years of struggle, these essential workers feel they were heard and understood by the jury and are overjoyed and relieved by the verdict.”
The verdict comes as courts in San Francisco continue to hear other lawsuits accusing San Francisco government agencies and other employers of violating the religious conscience rights of workers fired for refusing to comply with Covid vaccine mandates.
An action on behalf of a group of San Francisco city workers is currently pending in federal court against the city and county of San Francisco. The PJI is also representing plaintiff workers in that action.
And in San Francisco County Superior Court, a trial is scheduled for next spring in a lawsuit brought against Dignity Health by workers fired by the hospital system for allegedly refusing to grant their religious exemption requests to that company's Covid shot mandate.
The legal action against BART dates to October 2022, when the six plaintiffs first filed suit against BART, accusing the agency of religious employment discrimination for refusing the workers' request for accommodation in lieu of receiving a Covid shot, as mandated by the agency.
BART imposed its Covid vaccine mandate on Oct. 14, 2021, requiring all of its agency employees to receive Covid shots or risk losing their jobs.
According to the lawsuit, 179 employees ultimately requested religious exemptions or accommodations under federal and state laws forbidding religious discrimination. According to the complaint, 70 employees were granted exemptions.
However, 109 such exemption requests were denied.
And the plaintiffs asserted BART denied accommodations to all of those workers, whether or not they were granted exemptions.
The complaint noted these mandates persisted even after medial evidence revealed that the Covid shots did not prevent anyone from contracting Covid themselves or spreading the virus to others.
In their lawsuit, the plaintiff workers said they refused to take the Covid shot because they believed the injections were formulated from human fetal cell lines, which may have been obtained from aborted fetuses. As staunch believers in the sanctity of human life as informed by their Christian faith, the workers said they could not in good conscience undergo medical procedures involving formulas obtained through abortions.
The former BART workers filed suit after the agency fired them for refusing to comply with the vaccination order.
BART contested the lawsuit for two years, ultimately taking the case to trial in mid-October 2024.
Jurors then rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, finding BART couldn't prove its refusal to grant accommodations to the workers was rooted in "an undue hardship" for the agency; and that the plaintiffs had shown the Covid vaccine mandate forced them to face a "genuine conflict between their faith and the vaccine requirement."
The money damages were calculated by adding $1 million to the fired workers' lost wages, as estimated by the plaintiffs' economic expert at trial.