Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—D. Or.: 'Hypersensitive immune system,' asserted for COVID vaccination refusal, cannot support ADA claim, (May 12, 2026)

By Robert Margolis, J.D.

An employee’s disability discrimination claim failed as her alleged physical condition did not cause the requisite impairment, and her position could not be performed remotely or by taking ivermectin rather than being vaccinated.

A former healthcare employee’s assertion that her “hypersensitive immune system” prevented her from obtaining the COVID-19 vaccination did not support her claim that the employer’s failure to accommodate her by allowing her to work fully remotely or take ivermectin as a substitute for the vaccine violated the ADA, held a federal district court in Oregon. The court found there was insufficient evidence that her alleged condition impaired her ability to perform any major life activities. But even if she could satisfy that element, the employer established that the accommodations that were sought; (1) being allowed to work fully remotely; or (2) being allowed to take ivermectin rather than be vaccinated, would cause it undue hardship and constitute a direct threat (Buss v. PeaceHealth, No. 6:23-cv-01128-AA (D. Or. May 7, 2026)).

The employer is a not-for-profit healthcare system, with medical centers, critical access hospitals, and medical clinics in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska.

Vaccination mandate. In August 2021, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) issued a rule that all Oregon healthcare providers and staff be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, absent a medical or religious exception. The employer implemented a vaccination requirement consistent with the OHA rule, which included a medical and religious exception policy, but after reviewing the viability of other protection methods, determined that allowing unvaccinated caregivers to work onsite was an “unjustifiable” risk, whether the caregiver interacted directly with patients or not.

Exceptions granted, still terminated. At the time the employer implemented the vaccination requirement, the employee was worked as a Quality Program Lead at one of the employer’s medical centers in Oregon. She applied for and was granted both a religious and medical exception to the employer’s vaccination requirement, was placed on administrative leave, and later terminated.

She sued the employer for failing to accommodate a disability and her religious beliefs. Her religious accommodation claims were dismissed on a pleading motion, leaving the ADA claims. The employer moved for summary judgment after discovery.

Not disabled. The employee’s claims failed because her proffered disability, a “hypersensitive immune system,” did not qualify as a disability under the ADA.

Although the employee contended her disability was a “hypersensitive immune system,” which placed her at a “high risk” of having an allergic reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine, the court noted that even if there was evidence to support the employee’s claim that she actually had this condition and it increased her risk as contended, there was no such evidence in the record, and the employee provided no evidence that the condition limited one or more of her major life activities.

Even if “major life activity” includes “the operation or function of the immune system” as the employee argued, she failed to provide evidence that her immune system caused any physical or mental impairment that was relevant to her claim, explained the court. She contended only that her condition prevented her from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine but cited no authority to support her contention that receiving a vaccination is a major life activity under the ADA.

Notably, continued the court, she did not show that she had qualifying vaccination contraindications that would support her claim that taking the vaccination itself could limit a major life activity. And the fact that the employer granted the employee her medical exception request did not relieve her of the necessity of meeting her burden to show that she was disabled under the ADA.

Undue hardship, direct threat. Even if the employee established her prima facie case, the court agreed with the employer that it would be entitled to summary judgment because it established the defenses that it could not provide requested accommodations without undue hardship and a direct threat to its operations.

Accommodations. The employee asserted that she was entitled to either of two accommodations: (1) she be allowed to work fully remotely; or (2) she be allowed to take the drug ivermectin instead of the COVID-19 vaccine. She urged that the employer could have allowed either accommodation without undue hardship. The court found otherwise.

Remote work. Making short shrift of her accommodation request to perform her job fully remotely, the court noted she had conceded at her deposition that at least two essential functions of her position required her to be on site: (1) as part of her safety responder duties she needed to be on site to respond to caregiver safety reports and to potentially harmful patient events; and (2) as part of her regulatory duties, she was required to facilitate hospital access to surveyors and to accompany them around the facility. Thus, there was no material factual dispute as to this issue.

Ivermectin. As to ivermectin, the court looked at additional factors. Establishing undue hardship requires an employer to show the accommodation would cause “significant difficulty or expense.” 42 U.S.C. § 12111(10)(A). Recent Ninth Circuit case law addressing undue hardship in the COVID-19 context has held that factors relevant to the defense include: (1) “health and safety costs[,]” which means health and safety risks to the employee’s coworkers and the public they served; (2) the employer’s “operational burdens;” and (3) the employer’s “financial burdens.” Peterson v. Snohomish Reg’l Fire & Rescue, 150 F.4th 1211, 1218, 1220-21 (9th Cir. 2025). Courts look at these factors in light of: (1) the information available at the time the employer made its undue hardship decision; (2) the economic and non-economic costs of the accommodation; and (3) the aggregate effects of accommodations requested by multiple, similarly situated employees. These factors all weighed in the employer’s favor, the court found.

At the time the decision was made to require vaccination rather than other COVID-19 mitigation strategies, the then-available information included: (1) unrebutted scientific and medical evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines were safe and highly effective; (2) OHA had issued a rule requiring health care employees be vaccinated; and (3) the employer’s internal epidemiologic data showing patients were 11.6 times more likely to be infected with COVID-19 by unvaccinated caregivers than vaccinated caregivers, that two patient deaths had been traced to unvaccinated caregivers, and that a significant portion of their patient population was medically vulnerable and unvaccinated.

As to ivermectin, the court excluded as unreliable the expert testimony about ivermectin’s effectiveness from the employee’s expert witness, instead crediting the employer’s rebuttal expert’s conclusion that the medical and scientific consensus was that ivermectin was not an effective COVID-19 treatment or prophylactic.

System-wide effect. For the same reasons—the system-wide effect on patients and caregivers, and the underlying fact that ivermectin was not considered effective—the court found the aggregate costs of the requested ivermectin accommodation to be so high as to support the undue hardship finding. It noted that nearly 1000 employees sought the vaccination exception from the employer, and more than 800 had their exception requests granted. Therefore, it was appropriate for the court to consider the effects of accommodation in the aggregate when determining undue hardship.

Finally, the above-described consensus as to the risks unvaccinated caregivers would impose on patients and staff, coupled with the absence of evidence that ivermectin was an effective substitute for vaccination, supported the employer’s direct threat defense.

The case is No. 6:23-cv-01128-AA.

Judge: Aiken, A.

Attorneys: Stephen J. Joncus (Joncus Law) for Vanessa Buss. Kelly S. Riggs (Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt) for PeaceHealth.

Companies: PeaceHealth

Cases: Discrimination DisabilityDiscrimination Discharge Covid19 OregonNews