Religious freedom organization Liberty Counsel announced that Illinois healthcare workers who were forced to get vaccinated against their religious beliefs have filed a lawsuit against their employer, NorthShore University HealthSystem, for discrimination and denial of religious exemption.
"IL Health care employees will seek damages from shot mandates. Employees who submitted religious exemption requests to NorthShore University HealthSystem and have been terminated are likely to prevail for damages under Title VII," Liberty Counsel tweeted on Tuesday.
LifeNews explained that Liberty Counsel asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to intervene in their petition out of protecting the NorthShore employees. The Seventh Circuit Court has denied the injunction that is still pending the appeal for emergency relief.
"Upon consideration of the emergency motion for injunction pending appeal and to expedite appeal, filed on December 10, 2021, by counsel for the appellants, it is ordered that the motion for an injunction pending appeal is denied. It is further ordered that the request to expedite the appeal is granted," Seventh District Judge John Kness said in the decision.
Liberty Counsel said Kness' denial of the injunction "does not affect the merits of the case" such that the plaintiff "are likely to prevail on Title VII and the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act." Liberty Counsel also revealed that NorthShore will be paying damages to their employees for denying them religious exemptions and accommodations. The damages include compensatory damages, front pay, back pay, attorney's fees, and punitive damages, among others.
"Since full compensation is available to those who win against NorthShore, the court concludes that the harms they are facing now are not 'irreparable,' as they can be repaired through money damages," Liberty Counsel said on Kness' 27-page decision.
Accordingly, NorthShore terminated employees who strongly opposed its Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policy regardless if the said employees' appeals were still pending. NorthShore removed the employees from their work schedules as a sign of their termination. The company previously granted employees exemptions that it eventually denied come September.
No explanation was given for the denial except the requests filed by the employees did not meet the "evidence-based criteria," which was never provided to employees in advance. NorthShore gave the employees three days to submit the missing requirements to their appeal. Oddly, part of the requirement was to submit an employees' entire vaccination history from the age of 18. This part of the requirement was not requested from employees previously for initial exemption requests.
NorthShore then denied exemptions based on religious beliefs, particularly in line with the vaccines being made from "aborted fetal cell lines, stem cells, tissue or derivative materials will result in denials." Liberty Counsel highlighted that this was "deceptive" of NorthShore since state laws particularly dictate employees' right to refuse or accept medical care type after determining it.
"NorthShore is falsely deceptive in that form by stating that the COVID-19 injections have no link to aborted fetal cell lines and refuting the religious beliefs of health care workers who object to the undeniable connection of the injections to aborted fetal cell lines," Liberty Counsel elaborated.
"NorthShore University HealthSystem cannot ignore state and federal law and terminate employees whose sincere religious beliefs prohibit them from receiving these COVID shots. Employees who submitted religious exemption requests and have been terminated are likely to prevail for damages under Title VII," the organization, through its Founder Mat Staver, added.
