LIEB BLOG

Legal Analysts

Showing posts with label COVID-19 Vaccine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label COVID-19 Vaccine. Show all posts

Monday, September 20, 2021

Podcast | Social Media Posts Can Disprove Your Religious Exemption For Vaccine Mandates

Wednesday, September 01, 2021

Podcast: NYC v. Montana - Polar Opposite Vaccine Mandates

Episode 208 of The Lieb Cast.


Stop complaining about governmental vaccine rules for where you work and where you go. Just live in the right place for you. We explain NYC's vaccine rules to participate in everything and Montana's new anti-discrimination law that prohibits changing opportunities based on vaccination status. 


Search "The Lieb Cast" on any podcast player. 



Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Federal Court Upholds Employer's Mandatory Vaccination Policy

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas held that the Houston Methodist Hospital's policy requiring employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, under the threat of termination, is lawful.


In Bridges et al. v. Houston Methodist Hospital et al., 117 hospital employees sued the hospital for "unlawfully forcing its employees to be injected with one of the currently-available vaccines or be fired." The plaintiffs alleged that they were wrongfully terminated and compared the vaccination requirement to "forced medical experimentation during the Holocaust."  


Citing to EEOC guidance (which is not binding) stating that employers can mandate COVID-19 vaccinations subject to reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities or sincerely held religious beliefs, the Court dismissed plaintiffs' wrongful termination claim (Texas law only protects employees from being terminated for refusing to commit a criminal act). The Court also dismissed the plaintiffs' claims that requiring vaccinations is against public policy because the employees were not coerced to take the vaccine (clearly distinguishing a mandatory vaccination policy from plaintiffs' absurd example of forced injections in concentration camps). Rather, the hospital is trying to protect against a spread of COVID-19 and employees "can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else." The Court equated a mandatory vaccination policy to changing an employee's schedule or office location in the sense that "every employment includes limits on the worker's behavior in exchange for his remuneration. That is all part of the bargain." 


This is the first of likely many challenges to employer mandatory vaccination policies. Do you think permitting employers to implement mandatory vaccination policies is against public policy? If so, why?