CHICAGO — A federal judge has refused to grant a temporary restraining order to Chicago municipal employees, including police officers, seeking exemption from the city’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
A dozen city workers sued the city Oct. 31 in a putative class action in which they sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.
They argued that being forced to either show proof of vaccination or be terminated will result in “irreparable harm as their fundamental rights are trampled and they lose their jobs for no reason beyond their sincerely held religious beliefs, rights to conscience, legitimate concerns based on medical and scientific data on the superiority of natural immunity, rates of COVID-19 being the same between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, side effects of the vaccine and other reasons.”
The workers alleged the policy violates Fourth and 14th Amendment privacy protections, 14th Amendment due process rights and the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause.
The plaintiffs, who identified their cultural heritage and employment history, work in transportation, fleet services, streets and sanitation and the police department in a variety of capacities. Many of the plaintiffs say they have been exposed to or contracted COVID-19. Sean Doyle, a transportation department electrician, said he treated his COVID-19 with Ivermectin and has no problem with testing, but filed a religious objection to being compelled to take a vaccine. Francisco Roman, a detective who is a 25-year Chicago Police veteran, said he is fully vaccinated, but does not want to enter vaccine or medical information into a city portal.
Failing to prevent the city from instilling its mandate, the workers argued, would result in “hundreds of thousands of city workers” being forcibly removed from service, either fired or put on leave without pay. They acknowledged other lawsuits challenging the city’s mandate have failed to yield their intended results “and the issue of the vaccine mandate may take a longer time and even higher courts to resolve — but during the time this case is pending, the city workers, and specifically these plaintiffs in this case, should be allowed to return to work, or be allowed to off work in a paid status.”
In an opinion issued Dec. 1, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman denied the motion for temporary relief, finding the workers didn’t make a strong case they likely would prevail at trial.
While the workers alleged the city was blindly denying or outright ignoring religious exemption applications, Coleman noted the city said that, as of Nov. 5, it had received 6,300 such applications, most of which remained under review — including those from seven of the plaintiffs. Also as of Nov. 5, no employee has been fired or lost health benefits because of failing to report vaccination status, refusing biweekly testing or failure to be vaccinated. The five plaintiffs moved to nondisciplinary “no pay” status didn’t report vaccination status.
The First Amendment claim is likely to fail, Johnson explained, because the vaccine “policy does not single out any particular religious belief nor does it restrict practices because of their religious nature. In addition, any incidental effect in burdening religion is addressed by the policy’s exemption for sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The city argued its mandate has a public interest because employees, due to the nature of their jobs, are twice as likely to contract COVID-19 as a typical resident. Coleman said the state constitution gives the city home rule authority to implement public health regulations and also noted the policy’s religious exemption means it doesn’t conflict with Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act.
Coleman also noted a Nov. 1 ruling from Cook County Circuit Judge Raymond Mitchell that stayed the mandate as applied to members of the Chicago police union,. She said that opinion applies to the police department employees who are plaintiffs in this matter as well.
The police union lawsuit in Cook County court remains pending, as the city and various unions work toward completing arbitration on various unions' grievances over the implementation of the vaccine mandate and the city's refusal to bargain with the unions over the mandate's terms.
“Last,” Coleman wrote, “since Judge Mitchell’s ruling, COVID-19 cases in Chicago have significantly increased and the omicron variant was discovered."
Attorney Frank Avila, of Chicago, is representing the city workers in the action.