by Zachary Stieber for The Epoch Time – All links to Gospa News articles have been added aftermath
A U.S. judge approved a multimillion-dollar settlement on Dec. 19 for workers who were fired by an Illinois healthcare system for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
About 500 workers who were terminated or, after seeing their exemption requests denied, got a COVID-19 vaccine, will receive compensation as part of the $10.3 million settlement, a preliminary version of which was first announced in July.
U.S. District Judge John Kness, a Trump appointee overseeing the lawsuit brought by the workers, issued verbal approval for the settlement during a hearing, lawyers for Liberty Counsel and NorthShore University Healthsystem said. Kness plans to release a written judgment in the next week.
In a brief statement emailed to The Epoch Times after Kness’s approval, NorthShore wrote, “We are pleased with the Court’s approval of a supportive resolution to this matter and continue to prioritize the health and safety of our patients and team members.”
Harry Mihet, vice president of legal affairs for Liberty Counsel, said in a statement that the group was “pleased to finally get the court’s final approval of this classwide settlement for these health care workers who were unlawfully discriminated against and denied religious exemptions from the COVID shot mandate.”
“This case should set a precedent for other employers who have violated the law by denying religious exemptions for their employees,” he said.
Liberty Counsel, a legal group that brings cases of alleged religious discrimination, was representing the 13 named plaintiffs in the case.
The group successfully won class certification for all workers who were denied religious exemptions, a group that was initially believed to be 499 former and current workers but swelled after the preliminary settlement agreement to at least 519.
As of Dec. 12, 493 class members had submitted claims for a piece of the settlement.
Each worker who was fired stands to receive $24,225. Each worker who remained at the company stands to receive $3,725.
The named plaintiffs are in line to receive an extra $20,000.
Those payments, described as service awards, will provide compensation for the plaintiffs helping advise on court filings, gathering documents and serving as lead plaintiffs “in a sensitive case involving personal health choices and religious beliefs over a matter of intense public debate, even when it was uncertain whether they would have to disclose their identities to the public,” according to a recent filing.
Three workers objected to the settlement, but both parties urged the judge to disregard the objections, which were largely based on pay the trio felt they were owed after being fired.
Marzena Novak, one of the objectors, said her actual losses from being fired and losing pay approached $140,000. “Although the estimated $25,000 is helpful and will be welcomed, it doesn’t come close to the actual losses suffered by those they treated so poorly,” Novak wrote.
Mandate
Like many healthcare systems, NorthShore imposed a vaccine mandate on employees in 2021.
NorthShore told workers that they could file a request for a religious exemption using a form that said the worker in question needed to provide “a description of my sincerely held religious principle or practice that guides my objection to receiving the required vaccination.” Northshore explicitly instructed applicants to not fill out lengthy answers.
NorthShore initially approved some of the exemption requests but then reversed the decisions and denied “all or virtually all of them,” according to filings from the plaintiffs. Officials said the employees failed to meet the standard for religious exemptions.
Employees who wanted a second look were told to file an appeal that included their vaccination history since they were 18.
NorthShore then said that any religious objections based on “aborted fetal cell lines, stem cells, tissue, or derivative materials” would result in denials because those products were “not in NorthShore administered vaccines.” All of the COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States have links to aborted fetal cell lines.
At one point, one of the plaintiffs said, her manager said that “we are not approving anyone” for exemptions, although at least several were approved.
“Instead of engaging Plaintiffs in good faith, NorthShore denied Plaintiffs’ religious exemption requests en masse, providing nothing more than copy and paste responses, informing them that they lacked ‘evidence-based criteria,’ whatever that means,” one filing reads. “By failing to engage any of the Plaintiffs and its numerous employees with religious objections in good faith, NorthShore had no way to know whether an acceptable accommodation might have been appropriate. The only responses received by Plaintiffs and NorthShore’s employees were one-size-fits-all blanket denials.”
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The plaintiffs said the treatment violated the Civil Rights Act, which requires employers to treat workers similarly, and the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, which forbids discrimination on the basis of “right of conscience.” NorthShore repeatedly denied that it violated the law.
The system also stated that it was “an undue hardship” to let unvaccinated staff work at NorthShore and that “it initially denied many exemption requests and that on appeal it reconsidered some decisions and chose not to challenge that the requests were made based on sincerely held religious beliefs.”
by Zachary Stieber for The Epoch Time
Originally published by The Epoch Times.
Zachary Stieber covers U.S. and world news for The Epoch Times. He is based in Maryland.
Fabio is Director and Editor of Gospa News; a Christian Information Journal.
Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting.
For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime.
With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians.
In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence.
His articles were published on many international media and website as SouthFront, Reseau International, Sputnik Italia, United Nation Association Westminster, Global Research, Kolozeg and more…
His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others
He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator.
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Several religions advise against gambling. These jabs are a gamble.
The unfortunate part of this settlement is that they are only able to receive payments for pay lost. That also sets a precedent, which is not good for those who incurred much higher losses due to being fired. They will be forced to sue on their own a huge company who has the resources to fight them off. How many can afford to do so, especially after suffering income loss and associated losses? Most often, they can’t. With the company claiming that the FDA says they were safe, they will present the line that they were protecting other patients from being infected. None of which is true, yet it has to be proven in court. Good luck there. At best, this precedent requires only that normal pay has to be paid, losses or consequences of being fired are not recognized as company liability…regardless the fact they violated law in doing so. This ruling also is based on the fact that religious objections were handled en masse and not on an individual basis…meaning they did not consider each case on it’s individual merits. What if they had? Take a look at class action suits and who actually benefits. The corporations being sued. Their damages payments are far less than individual suits would be. This is akin to banks making $60M in laundering, but being fined $10M in penalties. Then there are the vulture lawyers….
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