CHARLESTON – Six former Charleston Area Medical Center employees have filed lawsuits accusing the hospital of denying their religious-based exemption requests over the COVID-19 vaccine and ultimately firing them for not being vaccinated.
The six plaintiffs – Christie Burton, James L. Jones, Connie Lawrence, Anna Samples, Crystal Thomas and Emily Thomas – filed their individual complaints September 14 in Kanawha Circuit Court against CAMC in Kanawha Circuit Court. The six plaintiffs worked in a variety of positions, including nursing, certified medical assistant, cath lab and courier.
Jones is an ordained minister, and three of the other plaintiffs worked for the hospital for more than 33 years (Lawrence 42, Samples 41, Burton 33). The complaints note their religious affiliations as Baptist, Pentecostal and Nazarene.
“It speaks volumes about the sincerity of their beliefs for them to be willing to put their careers and livelihoods on the line to be follow their religious convictions,” attorney Scott Evans, who is representing the plaintiffs, told The West Virginia Record.
According to the complaints, CAMC announced a policy August 25, 2021, that all employees must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Employees were granted the right to request religious and/or medical exemptions from the mandate.
Each of the plaintiffs completed exemption forms stating their religious beliefs and tenet which prevented them from receiving the vaccine. And later, each of them were told by CAMC their request had been reviewed and denied because they “failed to demonstrate any sincerely held religious belief which prevented (them) from receiving COVID-19 vaccine.”
The complaints say the plaintiffs were harassed and stigmatized by CAMC at the end of their employment by being continuously pressured to receive the vaccine and made to feel isolated and embarrassed by their requests for religious exemption.
When they were fired on February 15, 2022, they say no CAMC representative interviewed, inquired or engaged them in any process regarding the nature of their religious beliefs and how those beliefs could be accommodated by an exemption.
“CAMC’s animus, harassment and discrimination toward those employees … seeking religious exemptions based upon their religious beliefs is demonstrated by CAMC making, without objective basis, a second request for additional information related to … request for a religious exemption, CAMC’s failure to provide those employees requesting a religious exemption any instructions regarding the criteria used by CAMC to review the request, failure to provide a means by which employees can ask questions regarding the form and/or process for seeking an exemption, CAMC’s failure to provide for any appeal process for any CAMC employee whose request had been denied, as well as CAMC’s continuous pressure to receive the COVID-19 vaccine despite … strongly held sincere religious beliefs,” the complaints state.
The plaintiffs accuse CAMC of religious discrimination in violation of the West Virginia Human Rights Act for failure to accommodate and wrongful discharge as well as a hostile work environment as well as violating state code that requires an employer to exempt an employee from taking the vaccine for sincerely held religious beliefs. The complaints also accuse CAMC of wrongful discharge for violating a clear mandate of public policy under the 1978 state Supreme Court case Harless v. First National Bank in Fairmont, which ruled when an “employer's motivation for the discharge is to contravene some substantial public policy principal, then the employer may be liable to the employee for damages occasioned by this discharge.”
The plaintiffs seek compensatory damages for past and future lost wages and fringe benefits, general damages for humiliation, mental pain and suffering, emotional distress and embarrassment as well as punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interests, attorney fees, court costs and other relief. The plaintiffs do not seek reemployment.
Kanawha Circuit Court case numbers 23-C-816 (Lawrence), 23-C-817 (Jones), 23-C-818 (Crystal Thomas), 23-C-819 (Samples), 23-C-820 (Emily Thomas) and 23-C-821 (Burton)