A federal appeals panel has upheld a lower court’s ruling that an Indiana pediatric critical care specialist, fired for refusing a COVID-19 vaccine, can’t use the judicial system to force his reinstatement.
Dr. Paul Halczenko sued Ascension Health after St. Vincent Hospital, in Indianapolis, refused to grant him a religious exemption to its employee vaccine mandate, then suspended and ultimately terminated his employment. U.S. District Judge James Hanlon, of the Southern District of Indiana, denied Halczenko’s motion for a preliminary injunction requiring him to be reinstated.
A U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed Hanlon’s ruling. Judge Michael Scudder wrote the opinion, issued June 23. Judges Amy St. Eve and Thomas Kirsch concurred.
Seventh Circuit Judge Michael Scudder
The Seventh Circuit hears appeals from federal courts in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana.
According to court records, Ascension gave hospital employees a Nov. 12, 2021, deadline for COVID vaccination absent a medical or religious exemption. Halczenko, two pediatric intensive care nurses, another nurse and a nurse practitioner were suspended without pay in November, but only Halczenko lost his job in January. All five employees filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission religious discrimination complaint, as well as a putative class action, but the hospital granted the other four workers the religious exemption they sought.
“The record does not tell us why or how St. Vincent differentiated between Dr. Halczenko and these other employees,” Scudder wrote, though he noted “Halczenko treated gravely ill children, including those suffering from or at risk of organ failure. He did this within a pediatric ICU, and St. Vincent operates one of only three such units in Indiana.”
According to the hospital, it denied a religious accommodation because “providing an exemption to a pediatric intensivist working with acutely ill pediatric patients poses more than a de minimis burden to the hospital because the vaccine provides an additional level of protection in mitigating the risk associated with COVID.”
In denying the injunction, Judge Hanlon determined there was no evidence of harm that couldn’t be undone or a lack of legal remedy. Should Halczenko prevail at trial, he could be reinstated with back pay, and the panel noted his claims of Title VII discrimination, if proven in his favor, could result in compensatory or punitive damages.
“Halczenko staked out a stark litigating position in the district court,” Scudder wrote. “He submitted a sworn declaration stating that his professional skills would dull so rapidly and so extensively during any period of extended leave that within six months of being suspended — that is, by May 12, 2022 — he would no longer be fit to work in a pediatric ICU. He therefore insisted that court-ordered reinstatement to his position at St. Vincent was the only way to avoid this deterioration of skills.”
The doctor’s lawyers “backed off” that stance at oral arguments on May 31, the panel said, after judges noted “he was essentially asking a federal court to order the reinstatement of a physician who, by his own admission, had lost his competency to practice.”
The panel further noted that, despite the claimed skills deterioration timeline, Halczenko never moved to have his appeal expedited, and granting that injunction at the appellate stage in late June wouldn’t change the calendar.
“Speculation about how his skills may deteriorate during the pendency of the litigation is insufficient, especially when Dr. Halczenko’s contention comes without regard to his extensive training and past experience or an explanation for why a training course or two would fail to position him to resume active practice in a pediatric ICU,” Scudder wrote.
He added that a court finding Halczenko was wrongly terminated could order his employer to pay for training to restore his skills, or force it to pay him for potential lost earnings if he were forced to return to a less lucrative career.
The panel also rejected Halczenko’s argument an injunction was required because of the difficulty unvaccinated doctors have in finding work, with Scudder writing “career jeopardy alone does not amount to irreparable harm.”
With Judge Hanlon’s ruling affirmed, the case heads back to district court, where “Ascension and St. Vincent will be able to offer their own explanation for affording nurses religious exemptions but choosing to terminate Dr. Halczenko,” Scudder concluded.