An appeals court has sided with a Christian former employee of Kaiser Permanente who was fired for refusing on religious grounds to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 on Friday in favor of Mimi Weiss, a former senior consultant and department manager at Kaiser Permanente.
Circuit Judge Danielle J. Forrest, a Trump appointee, authored the majority opinion, which reversed a district court ruling against Weiss and sent the case back to the lower court.
Forrest wrote that The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG) was wrong to query Weiss about the sincerity of her beliefs when the company exemption simply asked for a religious objection.
“The sincerity of the employee’s professed beliefs and whether the employee adequately notified her employer that she has a religious conflict with an employment requirement are separate inquiries,” she wrote.
“There is no suggestion that TPMG ever questioned that Weiss was asserting a religious objection to the Mandate. Thus, Weiss plausibly alleged that she provided sufficient information for TPMG to ‘understand the existence of a conflict’ between her beliefs and its Mandate.”
Forrest concluded that since “Weiss plausibly alleged that she informed TPMG of her ‘belief and conflict’ with the Mandate, she has established the second element of the prima facie case for purposes of the pleading stage.”
Circuit Judge Richard Paez, a Clinton appointee, authored a dissenting opinion, arguing that “a private health care provider’s vaccine policy containing religious and medical exemptions, issued contemporaneous to state and federal vaccine mandates, likely does not reflect an egregious breach under the California Constitution.”
“The majority notes that the Complaint alleges TPMG asked unduly intrusive questions and insufficiently considered Weiss’s objections,” Paez continued.
“While these facts may be relevant to an informational privacy claim (which the majority does not address) or to the reasonableness of Weiss’s expectation of privacy ‘under the circumstances,’ they do not bear on whether a vaccine requirement constitutes a serious invasion of bodily autonomy.”
In a statement Friday, Weiss said she wasn’t asking her employer for “special treatment,” but the “freedom to live according to my conscience.”
“I never imagined my faith would end up costing me my job,” said Weiss
“After 20 years of service, I didn’t think that was too much to ask. I’m grateful the court recognized that religious employees should not have to give up their beliefs or their privacy to keep their jobs.”
In August 2021, TPMG implemented a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for its employees, including those who worked remotely, like Weiss did at the time.
Although the company initially granted a religious exemption request from Weiss, a few weeks later it opted to review its decision and required her to answer questions about her request.
When Weiss refused to answer all the questions, citing medical privacy, TPMG revoked her exemption, put her on unpaid leave, then fired her for refusing to get the vaccine.
In July 2023, Weiss filed a complaint against TPMG, alleging that the company had discriminated against her on the basis of religion and failed to accommodate her beliefs.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled against Weiss in June 2024, concluding that she had failed to properly inform TPMG how the vaccine specifically violated her religious views.
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