ST. LOUIS – A Missouri federal judge has denied a motion to dismiss from a company which a former employee alleged had discriminated against for her religious beliefs and fired her, after she refused to take the COVID-19 vaccination.
On June 6, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri Judge Henry Edward Autrey rejected a dismissal motion from defendants Centene and Centene Management Company, LLC, in litigation brought by plaintiff Andrea Carlson.
“On July 25, 2023, plaintiff filed this action alleging her employment with Centene was terminated in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Plaintiff contends she was discriminated against based on her religious beliefs. Plaintiff asserts she was employed by Centene in August 2021. Centene advised plaintiff that it required its employees to become vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of continued employment. Plaintiff applied for an exemption to the COVID-19 vaccination requirement based on her religious beliefs. Defendants denied the exemption. Plaintiff appealed the denial. The denial was affirmed, and plaintiff’s employment was terminated. Prior to her termination, plaintiff informed Centene that ‘she is a religious woman who sincerely believes that she is obligated to keep her body pure as a temple of the Holy Spirit,” Autrey said.
“Ms. Carlson also sincerely believes that abortion is a sin and as a result, she cannot in good faith or conscience knowingly inject a substance (i.e. any of the available COVID-19 vaccines) into her body that she knows was derived and/or created through the use of aborted fetal cell line tissue.’ Plaintiff’s religious request was further explained to defendant that the core of her church’s teachings is the principle that she must obey the judgment of her own informed and certain conscience and that she sincerely believes following her conscience is to follow Christ Himself. Plaintiff alleges she advised Centene that she sincerely believes that her body is not to be altered in any way other than through means by which God created or through scientifically proven, safe, and effective manmade and necessary medical intervention. Plaintiff also advised Centene of her sincerely held religious beliefs and that she sincerely believes that consuming or knowingly injecting anything into her body that God did not create would constitute a sin and could prevent her ability from one day, going to Heaven and sharing that Place with God. Defendants move to dismiss on the ground that plaintiff fails to sufficiently allege a bona fide religious belief.”
Autrey said that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit provided that to establish a Title VII claim based on a failure to accommodate religious beliefs it had a three-part test: 1) That a plaintiff have a bona fide religious belief that conflicts with an employment requirement; 2) That a plaintiff informed [employer] of this belief; and 3) That a plaintiff was disciplined for failing to comply with the conflicting requirement of employment.
In applying that framework to the instant case, Autrey found that the plaintiff had in fact proven a valid prima facie claim.
“Construing the factual allegations of plaintiff’s amended complaint and all reasonable inferences thereof as true, the amended complaint satisfies Rule 12(b)(6). The motion to dismiss will therefore be denied,” Autrey ruled.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri case 4:23-cv-00931
From the St. Louis Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com