DA Larry Krasner will Face a Jury Over Denial of Religious Exemption
An appeals court on Monday ruled in favor of a former Philadelphia assistant district attorney who said she was wrongfully denied a religious exemption for the COVID-19 vaccine and subsequently fired when she didn’t get vaccinated.
On Tuesday, the Connecticut Supreme Court sent a case challenging Connecticut’s school vaccine religious exemption policy back to the Superior Court.
In addition to these two decisions, since May at least 10 appellate courts have issued decisions in favor of employees who sued their employers over COVID-19 religious or moral exemptions actions or policies.
‘Religious rights to refuse unwanted vaccination must be respected’
In April 2022, Rachel Spivack sued the City of Philadelphia and her former boss, District Attorney Larry Krasner, alleging he violated her First Amendment rights and the Commonwealth’s Religious Freedom Protection Act when he denied her COVID-19 vaccine religious exemption while allowing other types of exemptions.
The lower court sided with Krasner’s office and dismissed the case. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit this week reversed the lower court’s decision and sent the case back to the lower court for trial.
“We are grateful that the Appeals Court recognized that these important issues deserve a jury’s consideration,” attorney Lea Patterson, who argued Spivack’s case before the court, said in a press release. “No American should lose her job for living according to her sincerely held religious beliefs.”
During the pandemic, as an independently elected official Krasner could implement a series of policies governing COVID-19 mitigation measures in his office that were more restrictive than those instituted by the city.
Krasner’s office issued a vaccine mandate for all eligible employees in August 2021, about a month before Spivack, a non-unionized employee, began working there.
Spivack sought a religious exemption based on her Orthodox Jewish beliefs, submitting a letter from her rabbi and providing a detailed explanation of her religious beliefs, as per office policy.
Krasner said his office changed its policy between August 2021 and January 2022, deciding to categorically deny all religious exemptions without individual assessment.
He argued the law allowed him to deny exemptions based on religious beliefs if they created an undue burden on the office. However, whether he conducted individual assessments is one of the facts disputed in the case.
Krasner’s policy did allow a medical exemption for one employee and exemptions for unionized employees whose terms of employment are governed by their union contracts with the city rather than with his office.
However, Spivack was informed in March 2022 that she was denied accommodation in a form letter indicating she did not present a credible claim that her opposition to the vaccine is based on religious beliefs.
Spivack attempted to work with the office to find ways to keep her job without getting vaccinated, offering to mask and test weekly, but the office refused and terminated her employment on April 8, 2022.
Spivack sued Krasner and the city later that month. The District Court that first heard the case granted Krasner’s motion for summary judgment — or a ruling in their favor without a trial — saying there was no evidence his decision was based on religious intolerance.
In its decision issued Monday, the 3rd Circuit disagreed with the lower court, saying there were disputed facts that a jury should resolve.
A reasonable jury could find that Krasner’s comments “evince hostility toward religion that undermines” the neutrality of his office’s policies, or it could also reach the opposite conclusion, the ruling said. Therefore “neither party is entitled to summary judgment on neutrality” and the case should be heard by a jury.
Attorney Ray Flores, who was not involved in the case, told The Defender the decision to send the case back to a jury trial was significant. “When future mandates are being contemplated, universities, the government, the private sector and the military are all on notice that religious rights to refuse unwanted vaccination must be respected.”