Case updates this week:

August 29: In Williams et al. v. Legacy Health et al., the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington granted the motions for summary judgment made by Legacy Health System (“Legacy”) and Northwest Acute Care Specialists (“Northwest”) (collectively “Defendants”). Plaintiffs were current or former employees and contractors of Defendants who, during the COVID-19 pandemic, worked in roles that involved direct interaction with patients and other healthcare workers. Plaintiffs alleged that Defendants violated Title VII and the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) when they denied Plaintiffs' applications for religious exemptions from the Defendant’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies.

On a motion for summary judgment, the moving party (here, the Defendants) must show that there are no genuine issues of material fact and that, based on the undisputed facts, no reasonable jury could return a verdict for the non-moving party (here, the Plaintiffs). When deciding a summary judgment motion, a court must accept as true any reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the facts as favoring the non-moving party. In other words, if a fact could cut either way, the court has to assume it cuts in favor of the non-moving party. The non-moving party must respond to the motion for summary judgment by presenting either material facts that remain disputed and need to be decided at trial, or that the undisputed facts are strong enough for a jury to find in their favor. If the court grants the motion, the case (or the part of the case that is subject to the motion) is over at the trial level. If the court denies the motion, the case will go forward to trial.

Under Title VII, an employer must “reasonably accommodate” an employee’s “sincerely held religious beliefs” unless such accommodation would cause “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.” The employee must come forward with evidence of sincerely held religious beliefs that affect their ability to perform their job. The employer who is alleged to have failed to accommodate the employee's religious beliefs must provide evidence that an accommodation would cause undue hardship. The Defendants here did not dispute the sincerity of the Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs. Thus, the main issue on summary judgment was whether accommodating the Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs by allowing them to remain unvaccinated would cause the Defendant undue hardship.

The Plaintiffs and Defendants differed widely on what might constitute “undue hardship on the conduct of the [Defendants’] business.” On the one hand, Defendants described the unacceptable health risks to patients and other members of their hospital staff that unvaccinated employees posed. On the other hand, Plaintiffs argued that Defendants “must list a single instance where the unvaccinated status of plaintiff employees…imposed a risk...or where a coworker experienced hardship such as a specific instance of transmission or dangerous exposures.”

The Court first noted that the “Plaintiffs do not dispute the self-evident proposition that the 'business' of a hospital system such as Legacy includes the ability to protect and uphold the health of its patients and staff.” The Court then recounted in detail the undisputed evidence of the Defendants' efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 infections among their employees and patients before a vaccine was available. Despite those efforts, by December 1, 2020, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 had grown “to the point where [Defendant] Legacy deployed refrigerated semi-truck trailers as temporary morgues for deceased patients.”

Once a vaccine became available, Legacy prioritized vaccinating employees with the greatest exposure to COVID-19, but by March of 2021, most of its employees were vaccinated. Still, a substantial number remained unvaccinated. In June 2021, Defendants’ undisputed evidence of their consultations with experts and their own projections indicated that the more infectious and severe Delta variant would produce an unmanageable wave of hospitalizations. In light of the coming wave, Defendants determined that employees whose jobs involved “close, consistent, and frequent in-person contact with patients and staff” had to be vaccinated.

The Court noted that the Defendants had provided a vast amount of evidence of the undue hardship that the Plaintiffs’ refusal to be vaccinated would cause, while Plaintiffs simply asserted that they “need produce very little evidence to overcome an employer’s motion for summary judgment,” and stated their belief that Legacy's burden was actually just the burden associated with providing non-vaccine safety protocols. The Court recognized that it was required to draw all inferences from the evidence in favor of the Plaintiffs, but noted that it was not the Court’s job to comb through the record in search of a genuine issue of triable fact.

Because the Plaintiffs had not produced any reasonable evidence that would allow a jury to reject the Defendants’ assertions, the Court granted Defendants motion for summary judgment.

August 29: In Aaron Abadi v. Marina District Development Company, LLC, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of Aaron Abadi’s (“Plaintiff”) complaint with prejudice. In May 2021, the Plaintiff attempted to make a reservation at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa (“Borgata”). Through email correspondence, Plaintiff informed Borgata that he would not wear a face mask at the hotel due to a sensory processing disorder. Borgata’s Chief of Security responded that Borgata “could not accommodate” Plaintiff’s request to not wear a mask during his stay. Plaintiff then filed a complaint against Marina District Development Company, LLC, and the Chief of Security at Borgata (collectively “Defendants”), asserting that Defendants violated Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), the Rehabilitation Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, and 1986, and the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (“NJLAD”).

The District Court dismissed Plaintiff’s ADA claim for lack of standing and the other federal claims for failure to state a claim. Plaintiff appealed. After conducting a “plenary review” of the District Court’s dismissal, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that Plaintiff lacked standing under Title III of the ADA. The Court cited to Pryor v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n., in holding that Plaintiff could not seek an injunction under Title III unless he alleged facts “giving rise to an inference that he will suffer future discrimination by the defendant.” The Court emphasized that Plaintiff attempted to raise an inference of future discrimination based on a one-time incident in May 2021 under a policy that ended later that month.The possibility that this incident would recur was too speculative to provide standing.

The Third Circuit also agreed with the District Court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s claims under the Rehabilitation Act and § 1983. Plaintiff did not prove that Borgata qualified as a “program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance,” which is required under the Rehabilitation Act.

Finally, Plaintiff argued that the District Court erred when it held that Defendants correctly assessed the Plaintiff to be a direct threat to the health or safety of others, so as to fall within the “direct threat” exception to the ADA and NJLAD. In May 2021, when Plaintiff wanted to stay at the Borgata, COVID-19 had contributed to more than 580,000 deaths in the United States. Half of these virus transmissions occurred from those who did not mask, especially in a public place. The mass transmission of the virus, along with many deaths, was sufficient to support the Defendants’ determination that the Plaintiff’s failure to mask rendered him a threat which would warrant denial of access to the hotel.