Catholic woman awarded $12.7 million in religious discrimination lawsuit over COVID vaccine

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 13, 2024 / 06:00 am

A jury awarded a Catholic Michigan woman $12.7 million in a religious discrimination lawsuit after her former employer — Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) — refused to give her a religious exemption from the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and fired her.

The woman, Lisa Domski, submitted a religious exemption request to the company because the three COVID-19 vaccines approved at the time had been developed or tested using fetal cell lines that originated from abortions, according to court documents.

In her request, Domski wrote that taking the vaccine “would be a terrible sin and distance my relationship with God.” BCBSM determined that her position did not meet the criteria for a religious exemption. 

Domski, who was employed as an information technology specialist, was working remotely when she requested the accommodation and did not have in-person interactions with other employees. She was fired on Jan. 5, 2022, after working for BCBSM for nearly 15 years.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that abortion “is gravely contrary to the moral law” and that “life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception.” It calls every abortion a “moral evil” and refers to abortion and infanticide as “abominable crimes.”

However, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said in December 2020 that it is morally permissible for Catholics to receive the vaccines even when they were created using cell lines from tissue obtained by two abortions. The statement adds that obtaining the vaccine “does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion” but emphasized that the statement is not “a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted fetuses.”

Although the Vatican approved the use of the vaccine, the office declared that vaccination “must be voluntary” and that anyone who refuses to receive a vaccine produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses for reasons of conscience “must do their utmost to avoid … becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent.”

Domski’s lawyer explains the case

Jon Marko, the principal attorney at Marko Law who represented Domski, told CNA that his client is “a devout Catholic and she also believes abortion is a sin and it’s a sin against God.”

When it came to religious exemptions, Marko said BCBSM “definitely didn’t take her seriously and they definitely didn’t take others seriously,” especially when it came to religious exemption requests “with regard to fetal cells.” He said 3 out of 4 requests were denied, which implies that BCBSM treated employees as though they were “making it up or [were] not sincere.” 

The jury found that BCBSM engaged in unlawful religious discrimination against Domski by denying an accommodation based on a sincerely held religious belief. The jury found that the company had violated both federal and state laws that prohibit religious discrimination.

Domski was awarded nearly $1.7 million in front pay and back pay damages and another $1 million in noneconomic damages. She also received $10 million in punitive damages, which are only awarded in civil cases when the jury determines that the defendant acted in a malicious or reckless manner.

Marko told CNA that the punitive damages are “meant to deter a defendant from future misconduct to punish them, to set an example, and that’s what they did.”

“Standing up for your rights isn’t easy,” Marko said. “... She had to choose between her career and her conscience and she gave up her career instead of giving up her faith, and it’s a very difficult decision.”

When reached for comment, BCBSM provided CNA with a statement that said the company “worked to promote the health and safety of our colleagues, stakeholders, and communities” through policies that included a vaccine mandate.

The statement claimed “Blue Cross designed an accommodation process that complied with state and federal law and respected the sincerely held religious beliefs of its employees.”

“While Blue Cross respects the jury process and thanks the individual jurors for their service, we are disappointed in the verdict,” the statement added. “Blue Cross is reviewing its legal options and will determine its path forward in the coming days.”

Thousands of similar lawsuits

Across the country, thousands of employees have filed lawsuits against employers after being denied exemptions for COVID-19 vaccine mandates, many of which are grounded in religious objections to the vaccines. Marko himself is representing 170 people to whom BCBSM denied exemptions.

Other employers have also been forced to pay millions of dollars to aggrieved workers whose requests for religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccine mandates were denied. In 2022, 500 workers secured a $10.3 million settlement with the Illinois-based NorthShore University Health System after being denied exemptions. Last month, a jury awarded $1 million each to six people who were denied religious accommodations by Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco.

Similar lawsuits are still ongoing across the country.