It is safe for an ex-employee of a hospital to celebrate in anticipation of a cash compensation of $45,000. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that the worker’s termination violated his constitutional rights.
Right after his dismissal, the employee took the initiative to approach the EEOC about his crisis. It turns out that the hospital worker requested for a religious exemption from the hospital’s annual vaccination against the flu. Instead, the next correspondence he received was a notification of appointment termination without considering his excuse for refusing to take vaccine shots.
Unfortunately for the hospital, some previously private details about the dismissal drama are public. Now, the many lapses of the employer in question are abroad for all to see.
In the employee’s petition to the EEOC, he explained that he joined Children Healthcare of Atlanta in May 2016. However, it was briefly after that period that he became a devotee of Judaism.
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So, on this basis, he officially requested for exemption from the organization’s vaccine mandate in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, the employee put in another request for an official exemption. However, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Hospital declined this time around.
The employee then wrote an appeal to provide evidence of his religious leanings, which prevented him from taking such vaccines. Also, he tried making the administrative authorities realize that his responsibilities in the hospital do not involve him coming in contact with patients or medics. He was on the maintenance staff. Nonetheless, the hospital’s management was unyielding.
Fast forward to the vaccination period for that year, the employee stood his ground and did not receive the vaccine shot. So, after an audit of hospital personnel who participated in the vaccine mandate, the maintenance worker was let go.
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After losing his employment at the hospital, the ex-employee filed a lawsuit to challenge his dismissal. However, he was intelligent enough to do it through the appropriate channel. He approached the EEOC and explained his dilemma, and the commission took up the case.
The EEOC argued that the hospital management should have allowed their employees to exercise their religious liberties. Besides, if they were granted on two previous occasions, there is no acceptable excuse to allow an exemption for subsequent instances.
In the official filing of the lawsuit, the official document indicting the hospital states that their administration violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Summarily, Title VII states that employers have no right to dismiss “an employee because of their religion and requires that employers reasonably accommodate the sincerely held religious beliefs of their employees.” With this argument, the lawsuit is seeking adequate compensation for the distress and trauma caused to the employee.
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Before taking up the case, EEOC suggested settling out of court. However, CHOA rejected the terms of compensation. However, the narrative changed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Now, the hospital will eventually have to pay the former employee a compensation of $45,000. Likewise, they received specific instructions to restructure their in-house policies such that subsequent violations of employee rights would not come up.
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