A federal judge has blocked a north suburban hospital system, for now, from continuing with its efforts to force employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, or potentially getting fired – efforts plaintiffs have described as a “purge” of workers seeking religious exemptions from NorthShore University Health System’s COVID vaccine mandate.
On Oct. 29, U.S. District Judge John F. Kness issued a temporary restraining order against NorthShore. Kness issued the ruling from the bench, at the conclusion of a hearing in the case.
According to a docket entry concerning that hearing, Kness declared the order would take effect on Nov. 1, the day NorthShore allegedly had set to potentially begin disciplining or even terminating workers who the hospital group claim have refused to comply with NorthShore’s COVID vaccine directives.
“This health care facility’s plans to purge employees who have sincere religious beliefs against the COVID shots has been foiled,” said Liberty Counsel president Mat Staver. “These health care workers are heroes.”
The legal fight centers on NorthShore’s decision in mid-August to order all of its 18,000 employees, contractors and volunteers to be vaccinated against COVID-19. NorthShore announced employees had until the end of October to be fully vaccinated, or face potential termination.
NorthShore operates six Chicago area hospitals, including Evanston Hospital; Glenbrook Hospital, in Glenview; Highland Park Hospital; Northwest Community Hospital, in Arlington Heights; Skokie Hospital; and Swedish Hospital, in Chicago.
The plaintiffs claim NorthShore initially indicated it would allow workers to claim religious exemptions to its COVID vaccine mandate.
The plaintiffs assert their interpretation of Christian scripture, as found in the Bible, concerning the sacred nature of human life, led them to reject medical treatments derived, in any part, from cell lines obtained from fetuses which may have been aborted decades earlier.
However, the plaintiffs claim NorthShore retracted their exemption opportunities, including issuing blanket rejections of any request based on the belief the vaccines were developed using fetal cell lines.
Following those alleged exemption rejections, Liberty Counsel attorneys sent a letter to NorthShore on behalf of the prospective religious objectors, demanding the hospital system grant religious exemptions, or face lawsuits for allegedly violating federal civil rights law and the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, among other statutes.
Under the language of the Right of Conscience Act, employers are forbidden from discriminating against “any person” in Illinois “in any manner” over that person’s “conscientious refusal to receive, obtain, accept, perform … any particular form of health care services contrary to his or her conscience.”
The state Right of Conscience law has been used by other plaintiffs elsewhere in Illinois to win court orders temporarily barring the enforcement of vaccine mandates
Those successes spurred Illinois Democratic state lawmakers, acting at the urging of Gov. JB Pritzker, to amend the Conscience Act, to “declare” the Conscience Act was never intended to block employers from firing religious objectors to COVID vaccine mandates. No court has yet weighed in on the significance of the Democratic lawmakers’ “declaration of existing law.”
In the NorthShore case, the plaintiffs said the language of the Right of Conscience Act, as it previously existed, should make clear that NorthShore’s employee vaccine mandate is “an impermissible discrimination against Plaintiffs on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs” and their rights.
Judge Kness has not yet filed a written order explaining his reasoning in granting the temporary restraining order. However, in a statement, Liberty Counsel said the judge indicated he believed “the plaintiffs are likely to prevail on Title VII and the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act.”
Under threat of lawsuits, NorthShore allegedly backtracked on its earlier outright refusal of religious exemptions. But the complaint said that reversal was in name only, as the hospital system allegedly has now insisted approving such exemptions would place an “undue hardship” on its hospitals. The plaintiffs claim NorthShore had also already removed the religious objectors from its work schedules, even as it claimed it was continuing to review their applications for religious exemptions.
“NorthShore has therefore made it clear that it is unwilling to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs of any of its employees, to allow them to continue their passion and life calling of serving others,” the plaintiffs said in their complaint.
“… Despite being willing and capable of complying with all social distancing, testing, monitoring, and facial covering requirements (and all other reasonable requests arising from accommodation for their sincerely held religious beliefs), Plaintiffs are being discriminatorily targeted, singled out, and punished for the exercise of their sincerely held religious beliefs,” the complaint said.
Judge Kness indicated he is also considering the workers' request for a preliminary injunction against NorthShore.
NorthShore is represented in the case by attorneys Marc R. Jacobs and Paul J. Yovanic Jr., of the firm of Seyfarth Shaw, of Chicago.
The NorthShore workers are represented by attorneys Horatio G. Mihet, and others with Liberty Counsel, and attorney Sorin Leahu, of the Leahu Law Group, of Chicago.