Judge dismisses religious discrimination lawsuit by PeaceHealth workers over COVID vaccine

Creating new duties for Springfield workers who refused the COVID-19 vaccine because of religious beliefs would have posed “undue hardship” for PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, March 17.

The ruling ends lawsuits filed by four former workers at RiverBend. The hospital is operated by PeaceHealth, a not-for-profit health care system with locations in Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

In three separate lawsuits workers — including a cook, a neonatal intensive care unit nurse and a specialist working with cardiovascular technology — said they were granted a religious exemption to PeaceHealth’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement and placed on unpaid administrative leave, according to the 48-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken.

But the workers said their treatment by PeaceHealth amounted to religious discrimination. One of the workers, Michelle Boltz, a nurse for the hospital’s “short stay” unit, also claimed discrimination because of a disability.

All four either later lost their jobs or obtained other employment, according to court filings, and in the lawsuits argued that “less-restrictive” accommodations were available that would have allowed them to keep working, Aiken wrote in the opinion.

“We appreciate Judge Aiken’s ruling dismissing this lawsuit, which provides helpful guidance on vaccine-related policies in health care settings and reinforces our commitment to caregiver and patient safety,” Jim Murez, a spokesperson for PeaceHealth, said in an email Tuesday.

Caroline Janzen, an attorney representing the workers, in a statement Tuesday expressed “disappointment” with the ruling and the case not going before a jury.

“At its core, this case is about how employers treat people during times of crisis, and whether employees facing religious and disability-related conflicts are met with care, dignity, and lawful accommodation,” according to the statement.

“We are disappointed by the ruling and respectfully disagree with it. We believe there were factual disputes about whether these employees could have been accommodated without undue hardship, and those issues should have been decided by a jury,” the statement said.

Murez said other similar lawsuits have also been dismissed. Another lawsuit filed by a Springfield worker against PeaceHealth remains pending.

Aiken’s ruling came after PeaceHealth filed a motion for summary judgment, citing an “undue hardship” defense against the claims. An Oregon Health Authority rule in 2021 required COVID-19 vaccination for all health care providers and staff by Oct. 18. 2021, absent a medical or religious exemption.

The workers stated in their lawsuits that PeaceHealth did not provide other ways for them to keep working.

Thomas Johnston, for example, argued that as a cardiovascular specialist he could have helped with “chart review [or] worked remotely on postimage processing,” Aiken wrote.

A nurse in the lawsuit, Kimberly Herechberger, argued they could have continued on the job by wearing N95 masks and undergoing weekly COVID-19 testing, while others said they could have possibly continued on through remote work.

Aiken wrote that she considered the information available to the employer at the time that keeping the employees working would pose an undue hardship, as well as the costs of providing accommodations, including noneconomic costs.

A PeaceHealth doctor, Douglas Koekkoek, PeaceHealth’s chief physician and clinical executive during the pandemic, testified “that ‘PeaceHealth’s Infection Prevention team had traced the death of two patients at one of its facilities outside Oregon to COVID-19 exposure from an unvaccinated caregiver,’” Aiken wrote.

Aiken described proposed in-person accommodations as “markedly inferior” to vaccination.

“This alone — the increased health and safety risks to patients and staff would have constituted a substantial cost and undue hardship,” Aiken said.

PeaceHealth in April 2023 allowed unvaccinated employees to return to work with N95 and KN95 masking, and the former workers argued that “a reasonable jury could infer that there were other reasonable accommodations for unvaccinated employees in 2021,” Aiken wrote.

But Aiken ruled that the April 2023 PeaceHealth decision was “based on the facts that existed in 2023, which were different from the facts that existed when PeaceHealth formulated its vaccine mandate policy.”

Aiken also noted the number of exemption requests, which came from 267 health care employees in Oregon, and that PeaceHealth did allow some of the exempted employees to work remotely.

“The aggregate health and safety, operational, and financial costs of accommodating hundreds of unvaccinated employees would have multiplied, if not exponentially increased, the risk and cost burden during the relevant timeframe,” Aiken wrote.

Aiken also wrote about remote work.

“Employees that could perform the essential functions of their position 100% remotely were permitted to work remotely and otherwise were placed on unpaid leave,” Aiken wrote. But the workers suing PeaceHealth “do not dispute that they could not perform their jobs 100% remotely,” Aiken wrote.

“To create new remote positions for Plaintiffs and other unvaccinated employees, PeaceHealth would have had to manufacture hundreds of redundant or unneeded positions that would have added a substantial operational and cost burden to a hospital system that was already severely stressed,” Aiken wrote.