Lawsuits related to Covid-19 filed in Boston state and federal courts.
A federal appeals court yesterday upheld an earlier lower-court ruling that a woman who was suspended from the theology master's program at Boston University for refusing to take the nasal Covid-19 tests the university once required has no case because the school no longer requires the tests. Read more.
A federal appeals court yesterday upheld a lower-court judge's dismissal of a suit by several Boston University students over the move to online education, ruling that a state law passed last year specifically to bar such suits is constitutionally valid. Read more.
Florrie McCarthy, who says she worked 36 years as a registered nurse at Mass. General, charges the hospital fired her after rejecting her request for a medical exemption for a Covid-19 booster despite a letter from the hospital's own neurology department that it "could not rule" out her earlier Covid-19 shots for "neurological symptoms" she experienced after getting the first two vaccine shots. Read more.
A long-time nurse at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center says she got the first of two required Covid-19 shots under pressure from hospital administrators - and with God's OK - then fell seriously ill, refused the second shot and was fired. Read more.
A federal judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit by a nurse at Boston Medical Center over the way the hospital fired her after rejecting her request for a religious exemption to its requirement that all employees get vaccinated against Covid-19, saying her suit failed to provide very specific details on just what religious doctrines would have been violated by the shots. Read more.
A federal judge today dismissed a Milton Hospital office manager's suit over getting fired for refusing Covid-19 shots because the woman initially failed to provide any details about her religious beliefs and why those barred her from getting vaccinated, but that even after she did, she failed to prove her right to practice her religion outweighed the hospital's right to do everything it could to protect its patients and other staffers from a deadly pandemic. Read more.
The owners of 21 North End restaurants and the North End Chamber of Commerce yesterday sued the city over its 2022 fees for restaurants in the neighborhood that wanted to use public sidewalks and streets for patio seating - and its ban on such patios last year - alleging the Wu administration and a local residents' groups hate Italians for some reason. Read more.
A federal judge yesterday dismissed most of a lawsuit by a Milton Hospital office manager who was fired when she refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19. Read more.
The State Police Association of Massachusetts went to court yesterday to try to overturn an arbitrator's ruling that it has no grounds to appeal the dismissal of 13 state troopers early last year after they refused to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Read more.
A Cincinnati staffing agency that provides temp nurses to hospitals has sued Steward Health Care Systems, which operates St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton and Carney Hospital in Dorchester, for the money it says the hospital system stopped paying for all of the health-care professionals funneled to Steward hospitals following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Read more.
A federal judge today dismissed a Medfield man's legal attempt to block all Covid-19 shots in Massachusetts - and to have the state give him access to all autopsy reports dating to the start of the pandemic - saying neither had anything to do with his bid to get back into the Massachusetts School of Law in Andover after he was expelled for refusing a shot. Read more.
A billing clerk at the Greater Roslindale Medical and Dental Center today sued Boston Medical Center, with which the Roslindale facility is affiliated, for firing her in 2021 after she refused to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Read more.
A federal magistrate judge today dismissed most of a lawsuit by 20 nurses, technicians and other workers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and related institutions over their firings for refusing to get Covid-19 shots in 2021. Read more.
A federal appeals court has ruled that Sen. Elizabeth Warren has as much of a right to complain about anti-vax books as anybody else and has rejected a bid by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and two other anti-vaxxers to make her say she's sorry she asked Amazon to stop promoting it. Read more.
Update: Case sent back to state court, where Baldursdottir voluntarily dismissed it on Sept. 25, 2023.
A woman who faces a misdemeanor larceny charge over the body-worn camera she says an officer managed to drop while pushing her out of the way of Mayor Wu's car outside the mayor's Roslindale home during an early morning Covid-19 screaming protest has sued the city, the mayor, all the judges who sit at West Roxbury municipal court and a clerk magistrate there for violating her civil rights. Read more.
The owners of five North End restaurants who claimed a fee only North End restaurants had to pay to serve diners on public property was proof Mayor Wu hates White Italian men, even though two of them are women and another of Hispanic origin, this week asked a federal judge to let them drop their lawsuit over the fee. Read more.
Update: Myers withdrew her suit on Aug. 30, 2023.
An Alabama woman who worked as a United flight attendant out of Boston has sued the airline, claiming it violated her religious rights by putting her on unpaid leave and then firing her when she refused to comply with company requirements for Covid-19 shots. Read more.
Three nurses who say Beth Israel's parent company violated their religious right to refuse Covid-19 vaccines yesterday sued for at least $2 million apiece. Read more.
The owner of a Quality Inn on the Revere/Saugus line is suing the Boston Public Health Commission for the money it says it's owed for holding all of its rooms for three months in 2021 for Mass and Cass denizens who Boston never actually sent there once Revere and Saugus officials erupted in anger on learning of the plan. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court today upheld the city of Boston's 2021 order requiring municipal workers to get vaccinated against Covid-19, saying public-health needs outweighed the collective-bargaining rights of the police and fire unions that sued over the policy. Read more.
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