Mercyhealth Settles for Over $1 Million, Offers Reinstatement to Employees Fired for Religious Objections to COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate
CHICAGO, IL – Mercyhealth, a hospital system operating in Illinois and Wisconsin, has agreed to pay over $1 million and offer reinstatement to employees terminated for refusing the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds. The settlement comes after an investigation by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which found “reasonable cause to believe” that Mercyhealth discriminated against employees by denying their religious accommodation requests for the experimental vaccine.
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During the height of the COVID-19 mandates, Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit legal organization, supported numerous Mercyhealth employees whose requests for religious accommodations were rejected. While this settlement provides much-needed relief for these healthcare workers, it arrives nearly four years after their unconstitutional treatment, underscoring the prolonged struggle for justice.
The Trump administration has actively championed religious liberty through measures like the establishment of the Religious Liberty Commission and pledges to eliminate anti-Christian bias in federal agencies.
Acting EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas emphasized that this settlement marks only “the beginning” of addressing workplace religious discrimination. “I am committed to focusing our agency’s resources to address the very real problem of religious discrimination, and this resolution is just the beginning,” Lucas stated. “This is an example of what our agency can accomplish when we work with employers to ensure that the doors of our workplaces are equally open to religious employees. I am proud of the monetary relief that we have obtained here, and I am equally proud that these employees—who remained committed to their religious beliefs and practice at great personal cost—will receive job offers.”
The EEOC investigation revealed that between September 2021 and May 2022, Mercyhealth not only denied religious accommodations to some employees but also discriminated against a broader “class of similarly situated employees” across its facilities. In some cases, the hospital system failed to provide employees the opportunity to request religious accommodations altogether. Instead, Mercyhealth imposed a policy requiring employees who refused the COVID-19 vaccine and sought religious exemptions to either sign a form authorizing a $60 monthly “vaccine incentive charge” deducted from their pay or face termination. The EEOC found that employees who neither received the vaccine nor agreed to the wage deduction were fired, regardless of their religious objections.
“Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on religion,” the EEOC stated. Title VII mandates that employers consider reasonable religious accommodation requests unless granting them would cause undue hardship to the employer.
The settlement agreement, spanning three years, mandates that Mercyhealth provide back pay, compensatory damages, and job offers to affected employees. Additionally, the hospital system must revise and redistribute its policies, train human resources staff and decision-makers on handling religious accommodation requests, and report to the EEOC on any future religious accommodation requests related to system-wide vaccination programs.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “This hospital system did not live up to its name and instead was merciless to its faithful and dedicated workers. This class-wide settlement is rightly deserved for these healthcare employees who were unlawfully discriminated against and denied religious exemptions from the experimental COVID shot. Title VII is the superseding federal law that requires employers to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs unless the employer can show that doing so will result in undue hardship. Employees should never have to choose between their faith and their job.”
In a related case, Liberty Counsel is representing three New York healthcare workers in Does 1-3 v. Hochul. These workers were denied religious accommodations and fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine due to their sincerely held religious beliefs. The case, now petitioned to the U.S. Supreme Court, challenges a New York state law that required healthcare employers to disregard Title VII’s religious accommodation protections. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the state law, creating a conflict with other circuit courts and federal anti-discrimination law. Liberty Counsel argues that state laws contradicting Title VII are invalid and must yield to federal protections. The Supreme Court is set to review the case during its September 29 conference to decide whether to accept or decline it.
