Biden vs. Biden: Feds sue employers over vax mandates, settle suits against their own mandates

Nearly two years after President Biden accused the Supreme Court of endangering lives by blocking his COVID-19 vaccine mandate on large employers, his own administration has joined a litigation barrage against employers mandating the shot.

The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission sued United Healthcare Services and Hank's Furniture last month for allegedly refusing to honor requests for religious accommodations from their COVID mandates, a rare step for the agency and its first litigation on the subject, according to Bloomberg Law.

The lawsuits are silent on the role that Biden's September 2021 executive order, which required vaccinations for large employers, may have played in the alleged violations. An agency spokesperson, citing ongoing litigation, declined to comment on whether EEOC was cleaning up a mess the president made.

The timing is embarrassing for the Defense Department, which committed the same alleged violations against thousands of service members who sought religious accommodations from DOD's mandate.

Under a settlement agreement reached Tuesday, DOD agreed to pay $1.8 million in attorney's fees and costs to lawyers for the service members who prevailed against the mandate in two lawsuits last year. While Congress forced Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to rescind the mandate, he pointedly refused to keep it dead, sustaining the litigation.

"The military COVID shot mandate is dead" but "many of the high-ranking members of leadership, the Pentagon, and the Biden administration need to be replaced," Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver said, warning agencies not to test the public interest law firm. 

Also dead: California's medical misinformation law, which threatened the licenses of doctors who deviate from a fluctuating "scientific consensus" on COVID in conversations with patients. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed Medical Board legislation Saturday that inexplicably included a repeal of the law he signed a year ago, which had already been blocked in court and faced a frosty reception at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this summer. 

United Healthcare Services specifically exempted "full-time telecommuters" in October 2021 when ordering its hundreds of thousands of employees to get the vaccine, amid studies questioning its safety and efficacy. Yet it told one such employee she must affirmatively apply for an exemption, the UHS lawsuit says.

Former UHS Director of Clinical Administration Amanda Stone objected to vaccines that were "developed or tested using cell lines derived from aborted fetuses" on the basis of her Christian faith, which she explained in Oct. 6 and Nov. 11, 2021, requests.

UHS denied without explanation or an appeal option, according to EEOC. It notified Stone on Nov. 30 of that year that she was being placed on mostly unpaid administrative leave for refusal to comply, "locked her out of all company systems" and fired her Jan. 2, 2022.

The Hank's lawsuit alleges the four-state furniture chain started badgering Kaitlyn O'Neal, an assistant manager at a Florida store, to get vaccinated in July 2021. When she verbally requested an exemption based on her "sincerely held Christian beliefs" the next month, Hank's sent her "internet articles" calling them "not scientifically accurate."

The company refused to give her a written exemption process, and O'Neal's new manager told her Hank's "did not care why" she refused and would remove her from management if she persisted, the suit claims. 

On Aug. 20 it threatened to fire all remaining unvaccinated employees Oct. 31. Hank's followed through with O'Neal despite the fact that she "continued to respectfully confront" the company for ignoring, then vaguely objecting to her written request as "severely lacking," EEOC says. It could have accommodated her without "undue hardship."

The agency is seeking injunctions preventing the companies from discriminating against employees by failing to reasonably accommodate their beliefs.

For Stone and O'Neal specifically, EEOC wants "appropriate backpay," compensation for "past and future pecuniary losses" stemming from the companies' actions and punitive damages for their "malicious and reckless conduct."

Hank's Chief Financial Officer Adam Jordan wrote in an email the company has "done nothing wrong and deny and/all wrongdoing. Our attorneys are sorting all this out through the appropriate legal channels" but can't comment further.

"We disagree with the EEOC's case based on the facts and law and we plan to vigorously defend ourselves," UHC spokesperson Anthon Marusic wrote in an email.

"Among other things, the EEOC’s contention that the employee in question was a remote worker with no in-person job responsibilities is inaccurate," he said. "We continue to respect individual beliefs, while working to ensure the health, well-being and safety of our colleagues and those we are privileged to serve."

Neither answered whether or how White House pressure and Biden's executive order affected their decisions to mandate and implementation of mandates.

Legal experts told Bloomberg Law the EEOC's case is stronger since the Supreme Court's sweeping religious-accommodation ruling against the United States Postal Service in June. Vaccine-related complaints drove the surge in EEOC religious charges in fiscal 2022.

EEOC updated its COVID vaccine guidance after the high court's Groff ruling to specify requests must pose more than a "de miminis" burden on employers to be rejected, though they can ask for more information if they have an "objective basis" to question an employee's sincerity.

St. Jude's Children's Hospital, widely known for its heartwarming TV advertisements, is refusing to acknowledge the ruling's relevance to a year-old lawsuit by an information technology employee fired for not getting vaccinated, according to her attorneys. 

The hospital has repeatedly rejected requests to reinstate Lynn Kizer, modify her job or "consider her for other open positions" despite the clear language of Groff, and falsely claimed her job required "patient contact," the Pacific Justice Institute said in a Tuesday update.

St. Jude's recently admitted employees provided false information in sworn depositions and declarations, PJI attorney Attorney Ronald Hackenberg told Just the News. They falsely claimed Kizer's supervisor resigned before she could be interviewed about Kizer's request, so a different manager was interviewed despite St. Jude's countervailing policy.

Kizer's supervisor testified she didn't resign until 18 days after the request was denied, and could have offered Kizer three possible accommodations, PJI said. St. Jude's did not respond to requests for its response.

Fear of litigation or legislation isn't stopping Houston's Baylor College of Medicine from making its faculty, staff and students to get the latest COVID-19 vaccine. 

In a Sept. 29 email posted by anti-mandate Houston doctor Mary Talley Bowden but not publicly disclosed by BCM, Occupational Health Program Director Jim Kelaher "recommended" and "urge[d]" the community to get the new jab before specifying it was mandatory. 

Everyone has until Nov. 30 to provide "complete attestation" or request a "medical, religious or personal exemption," Kelaher said. Perhaps prompted by Bowden's publicity, BCM removed contact information for every staffer who deals with the media, though the page is archived.

Media staffers did not answer Just the News queries to explain the exemption process or when and why it hid their contact information. The college does publicly warn new and potential hires they must be "up to date" with COVID vaccination, meaning the latest booster, and does not exempt "U.S.-based employees who do not ordinarily work on-site."