A Chicago federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Friday preventing NorthShore University HealthSystem from placing 14 employees with religious objections to getting mandated COVID-19 vaccines on unpaid leave.
The anonymous employees were granted religious exemptions by NorthShore, but were set to go on a forced leave of absence Monday, using up their limited paid time off and facing termination if they didn’t get the shots by year’s end.
“They can’t be fired and they can’t be placed on what is effectively, in my mind, unpaid leave,” U.S. District Judge John Kness said during his ruling. “The hospital’s going to have to keep paying them. If you wish to require them to show up to work and use PPE and go through testing because you need the help and you don’t want to pay them to be off site, that’s up to the hospital.”
Liberty Counsel, a Christian ministry that advocates for religious freedom, filed a lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction against NorthShore on Oct. 25, alleging the health system’s vaccine mandate discriminated against the employees by forcing them to choose between their religious beliefs and continued employment. The lawsuit is seeking class-action status.
In making his ruling, Kness said employees granted a medical exemption from the vaccines for pregnancy or disabilities were being allowed to continue to work — “disparate treatment” that demonstrates the plaintiffs have “some chances of success” in the lawsuit.
Kness declined to rule on whether to grant class-action status to the lawsuit.
Horatio Mihet, an attorney representing the employees, said they should be able to continue working using PPE and weekly testing, as determined by NorthShore. Forcing them to get vaccinated or be terminated, he said, would do irreparable harm to their careers and violate their religious beliefs.
“When you condition someone’s livelihood on a choice or a decision that they have to make, that is the definition of coercion,” Mihet said.
The employees are named anonymously in the lawsuit as Jane Does and include nurses, a pharmacy technician and a senior application analyst.
Some employees don’t want to get vaccinated because of the vaccines’ links to aborted fetuses, according to the complaint.
While the three COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. do not contain fetal cells, cell lines derived from two abortions were used in the development of the vaccines, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The Vatican and other religious authorities have deemed the use of the vaccines morally acceptable.
In Illinois, all health care workers are required to be vaccinated or face weekly COVID-19 testing. Many Chicago-area hospital systems have adopted stricter rules, requiring all employees to get vaccinated or potentially lose their jobs.
NorthShore announced in August all of its team members would be required to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 31. The health system includes Evanston, Glenbrook, Highland Park, Northwest Community, Skokie and Swedish hospitals. It has about 17,000 employees, including 900 physicians, according to court filings.
“NorthShore as a health care provider … is in the best position to determine what is the best and safest course to protect its patients, employees and others in its community and the public,” Marc Jacobs, an attorney representing NorthShore, said Friday. “It lawfully and in accordance with requirements from federal and state agencies and regulators decided that the best and safest course was for a vaccine mandate.”
The health system received about 700 requests for exemptions to the vaccines, or about 4% of its workforce, according to court filings. The majority of requests were based on religious objections. About 400 employees appealed their denials, including those who filed the lawsuit.
A majority of the appeal requests were granted, including those from employees who filed suit. But NorthShore decided that having unvaccinated employees onsite was “unnecessarily risky,” and implemented the forced leave of absence on many of the exempted employees, according to court filings.
The next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 16, where among other issues, the court may decide whether the 14 employees should remain anonymous.
