Winnebago County’s government has been ordered to pay nearly $375,000 to pay the lawyers who represented a former county health department nurse, after a court ruled the county illegally fired the nurse for refusing to refer women for abortions.
On Feb. 16, a Rockford judge ruled Winnebago County should pay the attorney fees for attorneys Noel Sterett, of the firm of Dalton+Tomich, and Whitman Brisky and Nathan Noble, who represented plaintiff Sandra Rojas in her action against the county.
About four months earlier, Winnebago County Circuit Judge Eugene Doherty ruled the county had violated Illinois’ Health Care Right of Conscience Act when they took action against Rojas, nurse who is described as a devout Catholic.
According to court documents, Rojas had been an LPN since 1990, and joined the Winnebago County Health Department in 1996. She was working for the department as a nurse in 2015, focusing on pediatrics.
At that time, the department was restructured, and Rojas was also assigned tasks related to women’s health services. Rojas said the department’s administrators told her she was required, as a condition of employment, to furnish information about birth control to female patients, and to refer women for abortions.
Rojas objected, asserting such required duties violated her religious beliefs.
The department’s administrator, Sandra Martell, allegedly then told Rojas she could either take a job as a temporary part-time county food inspector or take a position at the county nursing home. Rojas refused both positions, and resigned, losing an estimated $18,767 in salary and $213,088 in pension benefits.
Rojas filed suit against the county and Martell in 2016, claiming the county had illegally discriminated against her and had violated her rights under the state’s Health Care Right of Conscience Act.
Further, the judge determined Martell had improperly concluded that allowing Rojas to remain in her position would have imposed a hardship on other employees.
Instead, the judge said he believed Martell was more concerned with ensuring Rojas fulfill the duties of the job related to contraception and abortion.
"Requiring Plaintiff to transfer out of her job because of things she might do — but has exhibited no intention or inclination to do, even during her three-week period of accommodation — gives short shrift to Plaintiff's rights under the Conscience Act," Doherty wrote in his October order.
The judge, however, determined Rojas could have reduced her financial losses by accepting the nursing home job. The judge then ordered Rojas to received only $2,500, because the Conscience Act requires payment of at least $2,500 for each violation.
This, in turn, led the county to argue that Rojas’ attorneys should receive only minimal fees, as well.
Judge Doherty, however, noted the case required Sterett and his associates “did good work” over many years in the case, “largely in response to the vigorous (and sometimes changing) defenses” presented by the county’s lawyers.
The judge, though, said the minimal recovery for Rojas also mitigated against the fee request from Rojas’ lawyers, who had sought more than $500,000.
Doherty reduced the fee award by a flat one-third, to $374,105 in fees, and $7,890 in costs.
In a prepared statement released following the ruling, Rojas’ attorneys noted they defeated the county’s efforts to dismiss her claims and even defeated the county on appeal.
“Healthcare professionals should not be required to violate their conscience to keep their jobs. Thankfully, Illinois has laws that protect a health care professional’s right to not participate in the provision of medical services which violate their conscience,” Sterett said.
“Nurse Rojas’s case set significant precedent and now stands as a seminal case under the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act.
“The Court’s fee award will hopefully encourage other public and private health care employers to respect their employees’ rights of conscience,” Sterett said.
The law under which Rojas had sued, the Health Care Right of Conscience Act, came to the fore of Illinois politics in recent months, as objectors to COVID vaccine mandates imposed by Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, among others, cited the law to seek legal protections against being forced to choose between receiving a COVID vaccine and keeping their jobs.
Judges elsewhere in Illinois granted requests to block vaccine mandates, saying the language of the law may be able to be applied to people objecting to being forced to take vaccines, citing religious objections.
In response, Democratic state lawmakers voted narrowly in late October to change the Conscience Act, specifically so the law cannot be used to block employers from firing employees who refuse vaccination on grounds of conscience or religion.
Pritzker and other supporters of vaccine mandates said the amendment to the law was needed, because vaccine mandate opponents were allegedly misusing the law. The law, they said, was intended primarily to protect health care workers, like Rojas, from being forced to provide abortion services and other medical actions they believed violated their religious beliefs.