Nurse Sues New Jersey Hospital Over Flu Vaccine Exemption Denial
Alexandra Clark, a behavioral health nurse at Saint Clare’s Health in Denville, New Jersey, filed the complaint last month after the hospital emailed her saying it was no longer accepting requests for religious exemptions
The denial was an abrupt policy shift.
Clark — a devout Catholic who has worked for Saint Clare’s Health since December 2023 — previously was granted a religious exemption from the hospital’s flu vaccine mandate.
“Ms. Clark has now been left with the choice to either abandon her religious beliefs or lose her job,” according to her complaint. She isn’t alone.
Her attorney is seeking class-action status on behalf of the “hundreds” of current and prospective employees also denied religious exemptions this fall.
Clark’s attorney, John Coyle, told The Defender that Saint Clare’s failed to provide a reason for its sudden policy shift.
Coyle said:
“This appears to be the Fall 2024 version of the vaccine exemption fight.
We have been contacted by several healthcare professionals facing the same issue — their employer suddenly saying that no religious exemptions will be accepted for the flu this year, or sometimes more broadly, no religious exemptions from any vaccine mandate will be accepted.”
The lawsuit alleges the hospital’s action violates the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, which protects employees from religious discrimination, and the New Jersey Constitution, which protects individuals’ right to worship freely.
Clark is asking the court for compensatory and punitive damages and injunctive relief to prevent the hospital from enforcing the new policy.
Saint Clare’s Health did not immediately respond to The Defender’s request for comment on the abrupt policy shift. However, a Saint Clare’s Health spokesperson told nurse.org, “Saint Clare’s Health places the utmost importance on staff and patient safety.”
The spokesperson said:
“Vaccine requirements and regulations follow a complex set of Federal, State and County guidelines.
Saint Clare’s Health has always and will continue to follow state and federal requirements.”
“As this is an active legal matter,” the spokesperson added, “there is no further information to provide at this time.”
Dominique Venezia, a New Jersey Chapter leader for Children’s Health Defense, commended Clark for bringing the suit. “A religious exemption is an individual right that should not be challenged,” Venezia told The Defender.
‘You always need to stand up and fight’
According to the complaint, in 2023, Saint Clare’s Health accommodated Clark’s religious exemption request for the hospital’s mandatory flu vaccination policy.
“However,” the complaint stated, “unlike last year Ms. Clark [this year] was met with the response that St. Clare’s was no longer accepting religious exemptions. … According to St. Clare’s, it was free to ignore the legal requirements for exemption and accommodation starting in the fall of 2024.”
Coyle said that since the lawsuit’s filing, he has heard that Saint Clare’s Health “quietly” contacted a few employees who had sought religious exemptions and provided them with the paperwork for doing so.
“In a perfect world,” Coyle said, “this could mean that this lawsuit will come to an end with St. Clare’s no longer violating the civil rights of its employees.” But that’s not guaranteed, he said. “You always need to stand up and fight.”
New Jersey’s confusing vaccination law
New Jersey has a history of confusing vaccination laws that some politicians, who wanted to push vaccines, tried to use as a way to prevent the state’s residents from seeking religious exemptions, Coyle said.
He explained:
“Before COVID, New Jersey required its healthcare workers to get the flu vaccine.
The statute and regulations setting forth this requirement contained a sub-section that provided for how to seek a religious exemption and how to seek a medical exemption.
The sub-part showing how to seek a religious exemption was removed by the legislature, which boasted that they had ‘repealed’ the religious exemption.”
When The Defender asked Coyle for an online source to back up his claim that the legislature had boasted that it repealed religious exemptions for workers, he said the “most egregious” examples had been “scrubbed” from the internet.
However, he pointed out that the New Jersey Hospital Alliance states that New Jersey law requires “hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies and potentially other facilities … to implement a mandatory flu vaccination program for all employees” and that “the only exceptions are for those individuals who have a valid medical reason that they cannot receive the [flu] vaccine.”
“But that’s not how any of it works,” Coyle said. The New Jersey Legislature doesn’t have the authority to remove workers’ rights to request a religious exemption for a vaccine. To do that, they’d have to repeal a federal law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and a state law, the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.
Both laws prohibit religious discrimination.
Yet the New Jersey Hospital Alliance fails to inform workers that they have the right to religious exemptions under both federal and state law. “Hospital after hospital started telling their employees there was no exemption — you get the flu shot or you’re fired,” Coyle said.
So he filed complaints against Inspira Health Network — which owns and operates several hospitals and health centers in New Jersey — before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging the health system had illegally denied five nurses their legal right to submit a religious exemption.
“The EEOC agreed and charged Inspira with violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act,” Coyle wrote in an alert to his clients.
As part of the 2023 settlement, the nurses were compensated for the discrimination they suffered. Inspira agreed to put procedures in place to evaluate religious exemption requests from the flu vaccine going forward.
“It’s important that people know their rights,” Coyle added.
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