Boston Medical Center nurse loses lawsuit over firing for refusing Covid-19 shots; judge says her request for a religious exemption was too vague

A federal judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit by a nurse at Boston Medical Center over the way the hospital fired her after rejecting her request for a religious exemption to its requirement that all employees get vaccinated against Covid-19, saying her suit failed to provide very specific details on just what religious doctrines would have been violated by the shots.

Last week, another Boston federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Milton Hospital by a fired worker there on similar grounds.

In his order today, US District Court Judge Richard Stearns ruled that Maureen McCarthy failed to show a legally required bona fide reason for her request. Her complaint, in fact, "is devoid of any explanation of McCarthy’s beliefs, let alone how they are religious in nature," Stearns wrote. The bulk of the 18-page complaint discusses not religion but alleged claims about how the vaccinations don't work and besides, McCarthy had already contracted Covid-19, so she was less of a threat to other employees and patients.

As an exhibit, McCarthy did attach a copy of the religious exemption request she filed with the hospital, but that fails to make her point as well, Stearns wrote. He began his analysis of why he was dismissing the case by quoting a section of that request:

I believe that receiving this vaccine would be a violation of conscience as a Christian who believes in the Bible, specifically the King James version. I feel that this vaccine would violate the principles laid out in God’s word, I believe my body is a temple for the Holy Spirit. It is a God given responsibility and requirement for me to protect the physical and spiritual integrity of my body (Rev 14:9-11, 19:20).

Stearns wrote that's not a doctrine from a particular religion, though:

Nothing in the request for a religious exemption indicates that McCarthy's religion inherently conflicts with obtaining COVID-19 vaccination (e.g., because it requires her to refuse vaccinations in general or even the COVID-19 vaccination in particular). See Griffin, 2023 WL 4685942, at *7. Instead, the cited basis for McCarthy's opposition to vaccination appears to be the dictates of her own conscience, which she maintains that her religion requires her to follow. Consistent with the decisions of other courts “faced with the same or similar articulated belief,” the court concludes that "such a conviction is not a bona fide religious belief." Thornton, 2023 WL 7116739, at *4 (collecting cases). To find otherwise would be to impermissibly make BMC beholden to McCarthy's personal preferences, as any policy violation could be framed as an expression of her religious belief.

Stearns then again quoted the Griffin case, in which an employee of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue sued after she was fired for refusing Covid-19 vaccinations despite her request for a religious exemption:

A stated claim of religious belief, without more, cannot grant an individual a blanket privilege to make his own standards on matters of conduct in which society as a whole has important interests.

McCarthy, who moved to Texas after she was fired, was represented by Peter Vickery of Amherst, one of a small number of Massachusetts lawyers who took on vaccination-firing cases.