Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RELIGIOUS—D. Md.: Pharmacist showed employer discriminated against her by failing to accommodate COVID vax exemption request, (Mar 11, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

There was no evidence to suggest the employee’s anti-abortion and Catholic beliefs were fraudulent, concocted for litigation, or otherwise not sincerely held.

A Medstar Health pharmacist who was fired when she refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccination after her religious exemption request was denied established that her objection to the vaccine—it was developed with fetal cell lines—was a bona fide religious belief. Denying Medstar’s motion for summary judgment and granting in part her motion for partial summary judgment as to liability, a federal court in Maryland also found Medstar failed to argue that providing her with an exemption or allowing her to employ alternative safety measures would cause undue hardship, and thus she demonstrated that it discriminated against her based on her religion by failing to accommodate her exemption request. The court, however, granted summary judgment to Medstar on her wrongful termination claim (Leonhartt v. Medstar Health, Inc., No. 1:23-CV-01211-JRR (D. Md. Mar. 7, 2025)).

When the pharmacist began working for Medstar in 2016, she never sought a religious accommodation to its annual influenza vaccine. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, she requested a religious exemption to its vaccination mandate. She asserted that as a practicing Catholic, she objected to, among other things, the use of vaccines developed from aborted fetal tissue.

Objections. In response to Medstar’s request for additional information, the pharmacist explained that she was a strict supporter of life, that she did not believe abortion is morally acceptable, that she has been a practicing Catholic since confirmation at youth, and that she instructs youth at her parish on the immorality of abortion. She also objected to the mandatory nature of the vaccine policy. Concluding that she failed to show her religious belief was sincerely held, Medstar ultimately suspended and then fired her.

Failure to accommodate. At issue in her Title VII failure-to-accommodate claim was whether her stated belief was bona fide. Finding no fact dispute as to the sincerity of her Catholic belief and anti-abortion convictions, the court pointed to her affidavit attached to her exemption request in which she stated that she was “a practicing Catholic since confirmation as a youth,” was “a strict supporter of life,” and was “a religious education instructor and confirmation teacher at her parish” who “instruct[s] the youth of [her] parish on the immorality of abortion.” She also attached a letter from her priest confirming her good standing in the church and stating that she “holds sincere religious beliefs.”

Religious in nature. For its part, Medstar argued that her religious beliefs were not bona fide because she failed to show they were religious in nature. It argued that her objections to the vaccine mandate—the use of fetal cell lines in the vaccine’s development, mRNA technologies, and booster shot requirements—amounted to a request for a prohibited blanket exemption. Disagreeing, the court explained that her response to Medstar’s request for additional information, in which she noted among other things that she was a strict supporter of life who did not believe that abortion was morally acceptable, demonstrated the religious nature of her objection.

God-given right. As to Medstar’s contention that her objection to the mandatory nature of its policy amounted to a claim to a God-given right to do whatever her conscience dictates and a “blanket privilege” that “could be used to evade any job requirement that [plaintiff] disagreed with,” the court noted that the Catholic Church guidance she provided stated that “the choice to receive a COVID-19 vaccine is a matter of individual conscience,” that “vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and [] therefore, it must be voluntary,” and that “those who, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses, must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent.”

Here, said the court, she “invokes her Church’s guidance in her religious exemption request,” emphasizes the guidance’s prohibition on mandatory vaccine policies, and describes how she will comply with its “instruction to engage in other, prophylactic means to reduce transmission of the virus.” Pointing out that she did not object to Medstar’s mandatory flu vaccine, the court found her “objection, therefore, to the COVID-19 vaccination policy is the mandatory requirement that she receive a vaccine that was developed using fetal cell lines, not to any mandatory health policy.” Accordingly, the court found her objection to the vaccine based on fetal cell lines was a bona fide religious belief and she stated a prima facie failure-to-accommodate claim.

Undue hardship. Medstar, which had the burden to show it could not have reasonably accommodated her religious needs without undue hardship, had a policy by which it allowed employees who received religious exemptions to comply with alternative safety measures. Though the pharmacist was willing to comply with such measures, Medstar declined to provide her with her requested accommodation. Nor did it show that providing such an accommodation would have posed an undue hardship. Thus, the court found the pharmacist demonstrated that Medstar discriminated against her based on her religion by failing to accommodate her religious exemption request.

Wrongful termination. As to the pharmacist’s claim Medstar discriminated against her based on her religion when it terminated her for refusing to submit to its vaccination mandate, the court pointed out that she admitted she was fired for violating the vaccination policy that applied equally to all employees regardless of religion. Nor was there any evidence that other employees refused to be vaccinated in violation of the policy and were not fired or were treated less harshly. As a result, the court granted summary judgment against this claim.

The case is No. 1:23-CV-01211-JRR.

Judge: Rubin, J.

Attorneys: Robin R. Cockey (Cockey Brennan and Maloney) for Amy Leonhartt. D'Ontae D. Sylvertooth (Ogletree Deakins) for MedStar Health, Inc.

Companies: Medstar Health, Inc.

Cases: ReligiousDiscrimination Discrimination Covid19 Discharge MarylandNews