Religious Discrimination Claim Fails Where Employer Shows Undue Hardship

Adding to the case law on religious discrimination claims brought by employees seeking a waiver from an employer’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement, the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of a suit brought by a registered nurse.

Alexandra Melino began working as a registered nurse in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CCU) of Boston Medical Center (BMC) in 2014. Her primary duties were providing direct care for patients in critical condition and coordinating with those patients’ families.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, BMC converted several units, including the CCU, into COVID-19 units to deal with the overwhelming influx of seriously ill patients infected with the virus.

BMC’s firsthand experience was that its health care providers were more likely to contract COVID-19 than others because of their greater-than-average exposure to the virus, and that those providers were at increased risk of spreading the virus to their patients.

To address these concerns, BMC adopted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendation for vaccination, implementing an immunization policy in August 2021 requiring all individuals working or volunteering at BMC work locations to be immunized against COVID-19.

The policy permitted covered individuals to submit requests for medical or religious exemptions to the requirement. Melino submitted a request for a religious exemption.

BMC sent Melino a questionnaire seeking additional information. When she returned it, she merely repeated her request for an exemption and refused to provide any other information.

The employer denied her exemption request. Melino did not attempt to engage in an interactive process with BMC, nor did she request any accommodation short of a complete exemption.

Melino did not become vaccinated, and BMC terminated her employment. Melino then sued, alleging that BMC violated Title VII and Massachusetts state law by denying her request for a religious exemption.

The district court granted BMC’s motion for summary judgment, and Melino appealed.

Assuming arguendo that Melino established a prima facie case, the court turned to the Title VII defense of undue hardship.

The burden of undue hardship falls to the employer to show when a burden is “substantial in the overall context of an employer’s business,” with courts taking into account all relevant factors.

Melino’s request was that she continue working at the hospital in the same capacity in the CCU and other intensive care units without being vaccinated. BMC claimed that permitting her to work unvaccinated would pose an undue hardship by increasing the risk of COVID-19 transmission among staff and patients.

Melino did not dispute that BMC could establish undue hardship “if the vaccines worked,” but argued that the onus was on the employer to prove that they did so.

“But it is uncontroverted that BMC implemented its vaccine requirement based on the CDC’s recommendations, which describe vaccines as mitigating the effects and spread of COVID-19,” the court wrote.

No medical evidence in the record contradicted BMC’s position, the court noted.

Melino relied upon a letter from Rear Admiral Denise M. Hinton, Chief Scientist of the Food and Drug Administration to Pfizer, which stated that the agency concluded “it is reasonable to believe that [the vaccine] may be effective.”

But Melino’s reliance upon the letter “undercuts her argument,” the court said. “Though the letter does acknowledge that the Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness was not known with absolute certainty, it also reports a rate of COVID disease prevention between 95 and 100 percent and concludes that ‘the known and potential benefits of [the vaccine] outweigh the known and potential risks of the vaccine.’ This record evidence, proffered by Melino, only serves to support BMC’s position.”

The federal appellate panel affirmed summary judgment in favor of BMC.

To read the opinion in Melino v. Boston Medical Center, click . 

Why it matters: Litigation on the issue of religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccination requirements continues, with a range of outcomes. The First Circuit had little difficulty finding that BMC established an undue hardship and acquiesced in its denial of Melino’s request for a religious exemption, while another .