A federal appeals courtroom as we speak upheld a lower-court decide’s resolution to toss a go well with by a cardiac ICU nurse who claimed the best way Boston Medical Middle fired her in 2021 relatively than let her preserve working, unvaccinated, with the kind of intensely sick sufferers who would wind up in an ICU.
In her go well with, filed in US District Courtroom in Boston, Alexandria Melino argued this violated her First Modification proper to refuse the pictures on non secular grounds. Additionally, she argued, the pictures did not work, anyway.
However the US Courtroom of Appeals for the First Circuit agreed with Decide Richard Stearns – who dismissed her case final 12 months – that there was no protected or sensible method for the hospital to let her preserve working, so her demand would have precipitated an “undue hardship” and legally, the hospital’s proper to not endure that outweighed Melino’s proper to maintain working along with her non secular advantage intact. Additionally, the courtroom mentioned, when the hospital requested her to raised outline a imprecise exemption request that solely mentioned the pictures would violate her non secular beliefs, with out explaining what these beliefs have been, she refused.
Melino’s request was that she proceed working on the hospital in the identical capability within the CCU and different intensive care models with out being vaccinated. BMC claimed that allowing Melino to work unvaccinated would pose an undue hardship “by growing the chance of COVID-19 transmission amongst workers and sufferers.” Melino doesn’t dispute that BMC may set up undue hardship “[i]f the vaccines labored.” However she argues on enchantment that “[t]he onus ought to [have been] on BMC to show that the merchandise marketed as COVID-19 vaccines really perform as vaccines in order to forestall recipients from catching and spreading COVID-19.” However it’s uncontroverted that BMC carried out its vaccine requirement based mostly on the CDC’s suggestions, which describe vaccines as mitigating the results and unfold of COVID-19. See Rodrique v. Hearst Commc’ns, Inc.
Melino was represented by Peter Vickery of Amherst, one in every of a handful of Massachusetts attorneys who took on fits by folks fired for refusing pictures. Final week, the appeals courtroom upheld dismissal of a case he’d introduced for a BMC neonatal ICU nurse. The week earlier than, a decide dismissed one other of his instances, involving a BMC endoscopy nurse.
Vickery additionally argued the hospital should not have fired Melino as a result of the federal statements on which it relied to require staff to get vaccinated have been “rumour” and never proof the pictures really labored.
And, the courtroom continued, a letter from a federal official concerning the vaccine that Melino’s lawyer mentioned confirmed the vaccine did not actually work, in actual fact concluded that “the recognized and potential advantages of [the] Pfizer-BioNTech COVID- 19 Vaccine outweigh the recognized and potential dangers of the vaccine.”
