Appeals court reinstates religious challenge to COVID vaccine mandate for healthcare workers

Maine didn't do its homework before claiming religious exemptions cause unique harm to public health goals, unlike medical exemptions state will grant, three-judge panel finds.

Maine will again have to defend its refusal to grant religious exemptions to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for non-remote healthcare workers under a ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Maine will again have to defend its refusal to grant religious exemptions to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for non-remote healthcare workers under a ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A three-judge panel on Thursday reversed and remanded a trial court ruling that threw out the First and 14th Amendment challenge by seven fired healthcare workers, finding it "plausible … in the absence of further factual development" the mandate privileges secular exemption requests "without adequate justification." 

The Title VII employment discrimination claim won't go back to trial court, however, because the panel agrees violating the mandate "would have caused undue hardship" for the plaintiffs' employers, namely the liability and disruption they could face for their employees' noncompliance.

The Maine law has an unusual history among COVID vaccine mandates.

The state Legislature eliminated religious and philosophical exemptions to broader vaccine mandates for healthcare workers in 2019. The change took effect in April 2020 and was upheld by voters in a "veto referendum" the month before, the panel's summary states.

https://justthenews.com/nation/religion/appeals-court-reinstates-religious-challenge-covid-vaccine-mandate-healthcare