WCVB had the right to fire a cameraman who refused Covid-19 shots, court rules

A cameraman for WCVB's "Chronicle" show may have had legitimate religious reasons to reject Covid-19 vaccinations, but the cost of providing separate accommodations for him to keep working meant the station had the right to fire him, because employers have the right to listen to federal public-health officials offering "objective medical evidence" in a pandemic and they didn't have to wait for a court to conclude vaccines were reducing the spread of the disease, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

In its ruling, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld a district court judge's ruling tossing George Rodrique's wrongful-termination suit against Hearst Communications, which owns Channel 5, although for different reasons than the lower-court judge.

Rodrique had initially claimed the station violated his rights to religious freedom because he had come to believe the vaccines were derived from aborted babies and his body was a temple for which he should not be forced to inject substances not found in nature. In his ruling, US District Court Judge Richard Stearns said Rodrique had failed to show religious discrimination, that his objections to Covid-19 shots were not based on any religious tenets, but on simple personal preference, so case dismissed.

Rodrique appealed. In its ruling, the appeals court granted that Rodrique had legitimate religious reasons to object to the shots, but that it didn't matter because Hearst proved accommodating Rodrique would have been a costly venture - and that it didn't have to wait for a court case for an expert to declare on the stand that the vaccines would help stem the pandemic tide rather than relying on allegedly untrue opinion from the CDC and the state Department of Public Health.

At issue was how WCVB initially tried to protect its staffers from the pandemic while still covering the news. Before vaccines became available, WCVB purchased a number of extra vehicles so that reporters and camera operators could travel to news scenes separately. As vaccines came in, the station tried to reduce the number of vehicles by allowing vaccinated employees to once again ride together in a single vehicle. In its summary of the case, the court wrote:

[B]ut because Rodrique was unvaccinated, his team was excluded. It cost WCVB-TV over $7,000 for Rodrique to maintain his own vehicle from May 2021 to November 2021, including over $2,000 in fuel.

Then Hearst required its employees to get vaccinated or get fired.

In response to Hearst's shift in policy, Rodrique initially sought assistance in obtaining a medical exemption from his doctor, but he was unsuccessful. He then submitted a request to Hearst for a religious exemption. On his exemption form, he explained that, although he did not subscribe to any particular organized religion, he had sincerely held religious beliefs that were "an amalgamation of many ideologies and spiritual practices," and that these beliefs prohibited him from receiving the vaccine. Rodrique identified two specific reasons why obtaining the vaccine would violate his religious beliefs: the COVID-19 vaccine was developed "utilizing fetal cell lines from aborted babies," in contravention of his religious opposition to abortion, and the vaccine would require introducing "chemicals into [his] body" in contravention of "the biblical maxim of 'my body is my temple[;] do nothing to cause its destruction.'"

WCVB fired Rodrique on Nov. 19, 2021. He sued Hearst in 2022.

In his appeal, brought by attorney Ilya Feoktistov, Rodrique argued another angle: That Hearst was relying on a bunch of public-health experts to spout their own "inadmissible lay opinion," and that the vaccine was useless in reducing the spread of the virus and that only experts testifying in court could provide the proof Hearst needed. Therefore, there's no "undue hardship" to allowing him to practice his religious beliefs on the job and not get vaccinated, his appeal argued.

Nope, the appeals court answered, although in more legalistic terms.

Rodrique contends that Hearst has not proffered admissible evidence showing that the vaccine actually protects against the transmission of COVID-19. As Rodrique frames the issue, if the vaccine does not reduce the likelihood of COVID-19 transmission -- as opposed to merely mitigating symptoms, for example -- then Hearst suffers no undue hardship by granting him an exemption. And in Rodrique's view, only expert testimony can support this conclusion. ... Rodrique argues, however, that Hearst needed to do more than rely on objective medical evidence, including public health guidance. In Rodrique's view, each employer should be required to prove to a factfinder in every similar Title VII litigation that the vaccine reduces the likelihood of transmitting the virus. But Rodrique points to no authority suggesting that this is what [the religious freedom provision] requires. ...

The record is replete with undisputed evidence that Hearst reasonably relied on objective medical evidence, including public health guidance from the federal government and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, when it set its vaccine policy. For example, Hansen [Hearst's head of HR] explained in her declaration in support of summary judgment ("Hansen Declaration") that the Committee paid attention to CDC guidance, including its "different quarantine and testing requirements based on vaccination status," and concluded "that vaccination proved to be one of the best protective measures against the spread of COVID-19 and would keep [HTV's] workforce healthy and safe while allowing [HTV's] stations to continue operating." In turn, the relevant CDC guidance in the second half of 2021 explained that "a growing body of evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people are less likely to have asymptomatic infection or transmit [COVID-19] to others." CDC, Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People (July 21, 2021). Hearst similarly stated in its responses to Rodrique's interrogatories that it concluded the vaccine reduces the likelihood of transmission because of "publicly available findings and updates from the CDC and other government agencies," and that Hearst "had communications with the Massachusetts Government concerning its plans for keeping its employees safe during the COVID-19 pandemic." And company communications implementing the vaccine requirement pointed out that it was "in keeping with the overwhelming opinion of the medical science community," that the company had defined "fully vaccinated" to align with the CDC's definition, and that the company's leadership was "monitor[ing] guidance from all applicable public health authorities." It was reasonable for Hearst to rely on these sources to conclude that the vaccine reduces the likelihood of transmitting the virus, and therefore that exempting employees from the vaccination requirement would pose a threat to the health of others.

The court continued:

Moreover, Rodrique's undue hardship argument fails because no medical evidence in the summary judgment record contradicts Hearst's conclusion that vaccinated people are less likely to infect others. Rodrique himself introduced into the record a Los Angeles County web page stating that "[v]accinating not only protects you, but may also protect your family, friends, and those in our community most vulnerable to severe disease from COVID-19." He also submitted an academic journal publication that found "[v]accination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and accelerates viral clearance." There is nothing in the record to the contrary.

Thus, we conclude that there is no genuine dispute of material fact related to Hearst's undue hardship defense. To be clear, our holding is a narrow one. It arises from the unique posture of this case, where Rodrique has staked his undue hardship argument on his claim that Hearst has not presented competent evidence that vaccinated people are less likely to transmit COVID-19. Because Rodrique has not challenged Hearst's evidence that accommodating his exemption request would be a substantial burden if the vaccine does reduce the likelihood of transmitting the virus, Hearst is entitled to summary judgment on Rodrique's religious discrimination claims.