HOUSTON (AP) — A federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by employees of a Houston hospital system over its requirement that all of its staff be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Houston Methodist Hospital system suspended 178 employees without pay last week over their refusal to get vaccinated. Of them, 117 sued seeking to overturn the requirement and over their suspension and threatened termination.
In a scathing ruling Saturday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston deemed lead plaintiff Jennifer Bridges’ contention that the vaccines are “experimental and dangerous” to be false and otherwise irrelevant. He also found that her likening the vaccination requirement to the Nazis’ forced medical experimentation on concentration camp captives during the Holocaust to be “reprehensible.”
Hughes also ruled that making vaccinations a condition of employment was not coercion, as Bridges contended.
“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” Hughes concluded.
Jared Woodfill, a Houston lawyer representing Bridges and the other clients, promised an appeal.
“All of my clients continue to be committed to fighting this unjust policy,” Woodfill said in a statement. “What is shocking is that many of my clients were on the front line treating COVID-positive patients at Texas Methodist Hospital during the height of the pandemic. As a result, many of them contracted COVID-19. As a thank you for their service and sacrifice, Methodist Hospital awards them a pink slip and sentences them to bankruptcy.”
Employees had a June 7 deadline to complete their immunization.
In a Tuesday memo, the hospital system’s CEO, Marc Boom, said that 24,947 employees had complied with the vaccination requirement and that 27 of the 178 others had received the first of a two-dose vaccine and wouldn’t be fired if they got their second. The rest are subject to termination.
He also wrote that 285 other employees received medical or religious exemptions, and 332 were deferred because they were pregnant or for some other reason.
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U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes, a gutless Judge. It is none of a companies business whether an employee gets or doesn’t get a vaccine. If someone has a severe reaction to the covid vaccine or they die from it, the company that forced the vaccine on these employees should be sued!
PITY we can’t mandate judges like this, GET A VACCINE against stupidity and liberalism!
U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston decision was definitely made out of fear and without concern to others. If the people bringing it were gay or black you know for sure that he would have supported the suit.
No one has the right to tell you that you have to put something in your body. Not even your employer.
Vaccines though important must be verified first and then the decision made by the individual.
If you are vaccinated then what is your fear or concern? If you are not vaccinated then put on protective gear or accept the consequences. The same goes for those that are not medical workers, if you choose to not take, then it is on you.
Stop the forced under the guise of the benefit of the public. Get your vaccine and don’t worry about the others. The flu shot has worked well under the non forced guideline. Something else is driving the Covid vaccine and it is not illness.
Exactly. We saw all those courts ruling private business couldn’t ‘discriminate in baking stuff/performing services for etc, when it came to the LGBTQs the other year.. SO WHY NOW is ‘their rights to do xyz, unchallengable/”?
The judge is clearly wrong. Probably an obama appointee.
Sad to say but he was appointed by Reagan. I would think that he may have been OK but the power of the job has gone to his head. He is one of many that need to be removed from the bench.
Actually, a PRIVATE employer has a right to place ANY restrictions as a condition of employment (as long as that condition is applied consistently to all).
AND WHEN every employer is doing that, how is it not effectively saying “YOU MUST COMPLY IF you ever wish to work”??
Plus what about those businesses who wanted to say “WE won’t hire LGBTQ, or we don’t serve LGBTQ”, THEY GOT SMACKED DOWN..
While it is true that employers can place restrictions as a condition of employment as WardMD says… They can not (and to Itusers point) discriminate against gays, LGBTQ’s, minorities, etc… as they are ” protected classes ” which are defined as
” A group of people with a common characteristic who are legally protected from employment discrimination on the basis of that characteristic”
If this kind of stuff keeps up and is upheld by gutless judges pretty soon unvaccinated people will need to be declared a protected class just to be able to go about their lives!
You can bet if the left gets their way, There won’t BE any ‘protections’ given to unvaccinated folks..
If I were one of them, I would gladly go. Uncle Joe is paying pretty well for not working.
That the drug is experimental is true without question — even the FDA and the drug companies themselves have said so. According to the Nuremberg Code, participation in an experiment cannot be required. Informed consent must be given. And “informed” doesn’t mean “threatened with dismissal from your job if you refuse.”
To leftists, that exactly is what “informed” means..
DO IT OR ELSE!
I’m curious why the judge would think that the fact (and it is a fact) that the vaccine is experimental is irrelevant to the case. This is going to get appealed and probably all the way up to the Supreme Court.
IIRC someone mentioned elsewhere, that VIA The Nuremburg laws, THAT THE US SIGNED UP TO, you cannot force someone to get an “EXPERIMENTAL VACCINE”…
Last i checked, THAT IS Exactly what these shots are.. EXPERIMENTAL!
The only question should be: do their employment contracts state that refusing vaccination is grounds for termination, or is the hospital just making it up as it goes?
The role of the Court, and of government in general, should be to enforce contracts impartially; not to treat them as “living, breathing documents” that can be adjusted on the fly according to shifting political winds.
That’s what they SHOULD BE doing.. BUT like with most everyting, the left LOVES “Interpreting it and adjusting it on the fly, as needed…