Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RELIGIOUS—E.D. Va.: Recent Fourth Circuit law saves claim of employee fired after refusing COVID vax, (Apr 22, 2025)

By Molly Platnick

The court dismissed a former employee’s wrongful termination and hostile work environment claims but found she alleged sufficient facts to state a failure-to-accommodate claim under recent Fourth Circuit case law.

A federal district court in Virginia granted in part and denied in part an insurance company’s motion to dismiss in an action brought by a former employee who was fired for failing to comply with the office’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement. The former employee’s suit alleged the company committed religious discrimination in violation of Title VII when it failed to accommodate her request for a religious exemption to the vaccine policy, wrongfully terminated her based on her religion, and created a hostile work environment. Because the former employee filed her complaint pro se, the court more liberally construed her pleadings, forgiving “various formal deficiencies.” Shortly after she filed her amended complaint, the Fourth Circuit decided Barnett v. Inova Health Care Services, which established a new framework for evaluating religious discrimination claims. The court reaffirmed its previous ruling the former employee did not provide sufficient factual evidence to plead wrongful termination or hostile work environment (Huber v. TIAA, No. 5:24-cv-00041 (E.D. Va. Apr. 17, 2025)).

Religious beliefs. The former employee argued she refused to comply with the office’s vaccine policy because of her “spiritual beliefs.” She referred to her God given natural immunity from COVID-19 in her Accommodation Request Form and stated that she rejects almost all vaccines and medications. In her amended complaint, she claimed to follow a California health institute that calls itself a “healing ministry of the Free Sacred Trinity Church” and promotes “non-medical, all-natural, holistic healing practices.”

In November 2024, the court dismissed all counts of religious discrimination in the former employee’s complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. She alleged wrongful termination based on her religion, hostile work environment, and retaliation under Title VII. In its prior opinion, the court held the former employee did not adequately plead a failure-to-accommodate claim because “passing references to a spiritual belief” were insufficient to plausibly allege her reasons for refusing the vaccine were “religious in nature.” The court further found the claims in the original complaint failed as a matter of law because she did not exhaust the administrative remedies for her Title VII claim and there was not enough factual evidence to suggest disparate treatment or hostile work environment.

The former employee filed an amended complaint in December that restated the discrimination claims and removed the dismissed retaliation claim. The amended complaint included additional facts, such as the former employee’s allegiance to the California health institute and discussions with insurance company personnel.

The court denied the insurance company’s motion to dismiss the failure-to-accommodate claim based on Barnett and the additional facts in the amended complaint. The court dismissed the former employee’s wrongful termination and hostile work environment claims, both with prejudice because she did not provide any evidence to remedy the pleadings.

Barnett. Like the instant case, Barnett was brought by an employee who had been denied a religious exemption to a workplace COVID-19 vaccine policy. The court in Barnett reversed the lower court’s dismissal of a Title VII failure-to-accommodate claim, holding the relevant inquiry was “whether the beliefs professed … are, in the claimant’s own scheme of things, religious.’” Before Barnett, the Fourth Circuit had not established a standard to determine whether a belief was religious in nature. Some district courts looked to the Third Circuit’s decision in Africa v. Pennsylvania, which asked courts to consider whether an employee’s beliefs address fundamental and ultimate questions having to do with deep and imponderable matters, are comprehensive in nature, and are accompanied by certain formal and external signs.

The court in Barnett clearly rejected the Africa factors and “explained that the correct test focuses on a plaintiff’s subjective state of mind.” Lower courts applying Barnett have focused on claimants’ subjective beliefs, and the court in this case referenced Harrah v. Lutheran Family Services, in which a plaintiff’s failure-to-accommodate claim proceeded even though his exemption request did not explicitly refer to “religion, spirituality, or a higher power.”

Failure to accommodate. The issue here was whether the former employee plausibly alleged her objections to the insurance company’s vaccination policy were motivated by a religious belief and protected by Title VII. Beliefs are protected by Title VII if they are (1) sincerely held and (2) religious in nature. The statute offers the same protections to “nonconventional” beliefs as well as conventional religious beliefs and under Barnett, a belief is religious in nature if it is in the claimant’s “own scheme of things, religious.

Here, the facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the former employee, plausibly suggested her spiritual beliefs and adherence to holistic healing and anti-vaccination were akin to traditional religious faith. Citing Harrah, the court explained the limited factual information was enough for the failure-to-accommodate claim to get to discovery, but noted it is “possible that later fact development will show [the former employee] did not communicate an objection that was based on a sincerely held religious belief.”

Wrongful termination. The court construed the former employee’s wrongful termination for religious discrimination claim as a disparate treatment claim. The former employee, however, did not allege any facts suggesting the vaccination policy was applied differently to her than non-religious employees. The court granted the insurance company’s motion to dismiss her wrongful termination claim because the complaint did not sufficiently plead disparate treatment.

Hostile Work Environment. In her amended complaint, the former employee reported feeling “harassed, frustrated, and intimidated” when seeking a religious exemption. An employee can state a claim for a hostile work environment under Title VII if she can show (1) she experienced unwelcome harassment; (2) the harassment was based on her protected class; (3) the harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive atmosphere; (3) there is some basis for imposing liability on the employer.” The court explained that prong three requires the workplace be “so severe or pervasive to render the” from both an objective and subjective perspective.

Here, the court was unpersuaded the additional information in the amended complaint was enough to meet this burden and concluded that the claims “do not plausibly rise to the level of actionable harassment.”

The case is No. 5:24-cv-00041.

Judge: Yoon, J.

Attorneys: Caroline M. Huber, pro se. Alicia Roberts Johnson (Ogletree Deakins) for TIAA.

Companies: TIAA

Cases: ReligiousDiscrimination Discrimination Covid19 Discharge VirginiaNews