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Court Dismisses Suit Challenging Hospital’s Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policy
In a scathing decision, a Federal District Court recently struck down a challenge from a group of employees to a Texas hospital’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirement.
In April 2021, Houston Methodist Hospital announced a mandatory COVID-19 immunization policy for all employees. The policy was instituted in phases, and every employee was expected to get the immunization or to submit documentation for an exemption based on a medical condition or sincerely held religious belief. Employees were given until June 7th to be immunized, and those who refused were suspended for two weeks. If they did not get the immunization in that time, they were fired.
A nurse and over 100 employees who did not want to be vaccinated filed a lawsuit seeking to block the vaccine requirement and prevent the job terminations. The complaint—which the judge noted was written in “press-release style”—made numerous allegations, stating employees were being forced to be “human guinea pigs as a condition for employment,” and that they were being “forced” to take a vaccine that had been “rushed” through the approval process.
The complaint alleged that the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System had identified serious health risks with the COVID-19 vaccine, and that employees were being made to take an “experimental product.”
Finally, the complaint claimed that the hospital’s policy violated the Nuremberg Code because employees were being used as part of a “medical experiment” without their informed consent.
In a blistering decision, the Federal District Court judge shot down the employees’ arguments, holding that the claim that the vaccines are experimental and dangerous was both false and irrelevant. The judge noted that the injection requirement does not violate public policy or federal law. She was disgusted by the plaintiffs’ comparison of the vaccine to forced medical experimentation during the Holocaust.
“The Nuremberg Code does not apply because the hospital is a private employer not a government. Equating the injection requirement to medical experimentation in concentration camps is reprehensible,” she wrote.
The judge also pointed out that being given a choice of a vaccine or being fired is not coercion.
“Plaintiffs can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if they refuse, they will need to work elsewhere…If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for his remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” concluded the judge, who dismissed the case.
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