Case updates this week:

August 8, 2024: The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted a motion by Defendant, Via Affiliates d/b/a Doylestown Health Physicians (“Defendant”) seeking to dismiss Dr. Joseph S. Auteri’s (“Plaintiff”) amended complaint in Auteri v. Via Affiliates. Plaintiff was a cardiac surgeon at Doylestown Health when Defendant established a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The vaccine mandate permitted employees to request a medical or religious affiliation exemption by September 10, 2021, with all employees being vaccinated by October 11, 2021. Plaintiff did not submit a request for either a religious or medical exemption by the deadline.

On October 11, 2021, Plaintiff submitted two written requests for exemptions from the vaccine mandate, one for a medical exemption, and the other for a religious exemption. On that same day, Defendant suspended Plaintiff for 30 days without pay because there was no evidence that he had met the vaccine mandate. Plaintiff was also informed that if he did not provide evidence that he had complied with the mandate in 30 days, he would be terminated. Plaintiff’s exemption requests were denied by Defendant, and he was terminated on November 11, 2021.

The Plaintiff then sued under Title VII alleging retaliation for his religious beliefs, and under the Americans with Disabilities Act for retaliation for seeking a disability accommodation. The Plaintiff alleged that when Defendant was considering whether to impose a vaccine mandate, he voiced his concerns that “the vaccine harms the immune system of those recovering from the virus and that it impacts the overall functioning of the human body as designed by G-d.”

The Court held that imposing a vaccination requirement in the healthcare field is a “lawful condition of employment,” and that the Plaintiff had ample notice of the vaccine mandate, as well as the consequences of not complying. Plaintiff did not request an accommodation until after the vaccine mandate went into effect, which undercut his allegation that he was terminated for seeking an exemption, as opposed to being terminated for failing to comply with a lawful condition of employment. The Court noted that courts have consistently dismissed similar cases for failure to show causation where Plaintiffs seek accommodations after the imposition of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.  

The Court also dismissed the Plaintiff’s state contract claim, which alleged that Defendants breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing in his employment contract with Defendants. The Plaintiff alleged that the Defendants used his failure to comply with the vaccine mandate as a pretextual reason to act on their pre-existing desire to terminate him. The Court held that requiring an employee to get a vaccine is a lawful condition of employment that does not, by itself, violate the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. And the Plaintiff had not alleged sufficient facts to support the claim that his failure to comply was a pretext for terminating him for other reasons.  

Finally, the Plaintiff sought leave to amend his complaint to add claims under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (“PHRA”). The Court granted Plaintiff leave to add a claim for discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation, which is broader than the protection under Title VII. But, the Court denied Plaintiff’s leave to add either religious or medical retaliation claims under PHRA because those claims are broadly governed by the same standards as retaliation claims under Title VII and the ADA and would fail for the same reasons.