Another CTA worker has secured the chance to continue suing the public transit agency for religious discrimination because the agency fired him after denying him a religious exemption from its Covid vaccine mandate.
On Nov. 6, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah ruled plaintiff Rashon Snyder can continue with his claims that the Chicago Transit Authority violated his religious freedom rights when it fired him after he cited religious objections to receiving a Covid vaccine, as the agency had mandated for workers.
Snyder filed suit against the CTA in 2022. He has represented himself in the action.
According to court documents, Snyder had worked for the CTA for seven years, begining in 2015. However, he was terminated in 2022, after the CTA determined he was in violation of an order requiring all CTA workers to receive one of the approved Covid vaccines.
Such mandates were common at that time, particularly for government workers. The mandates were handed down despite objections from a host of workers and others, who asserted the mandates violated religious rights and other individual freedoms, and noting the vaccines appeared to do little in otherwise healthy people to prevent infection or transmission of the virus that causes Covid-19.
According to court documents, Snyder presented the CTA with written objections, founded in his religious beliefs that taking the vaccine would violate various dietary and lifestyle restrictions based on rules allegedly culled from the biblical book of Leviticus and other Judeo-Christian scriptures.
Snyder allegedly further provided the CTA with a letter from his minister, backing his request for a religious exemption from the Covid vaccine mandate.
However, the CTA denied his request and fired him.
Snyder's lawsuit brought a litany of accusations against the CTA, including claims that the mandate was illegal, as it allegedly violated various state and federal laws governing the use of so-called "emergency use" medical treatments and addressing genetic information privacy rights, among others.
Shah rejected those non-religious considerations and objections to the mandate.
Further, Shah rejected Snyder's claim the mandate and his treatment by the CTA violated Illinois' Health Care Right of Conscience Act. The judge ruled those claims were defeated by Illinois Democrats' decision to "clarify" the law specifically to undermine lawsuits that otherwise could have used the law to defeat Covid vaccine mandates, such as those issued by Gov. JB Pritzker and the city of Chicago.
However, Shah said Snyder's religious discrimination claims under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act and an Illinois state religious freedom law can't be easily dismissed.
"Snyder states a Title VII claim for religious discrimination because he alerted his employer to his religious objection to the vaccination requirement and the employer discharged him for violation of the requirement," Judge Shah wrote in his opinion. "That is enough to plausibly suggest that his religious beliefs were the basis of the discharge."
The ruling marks at least the second time a federal judge has ruled that a CTA worker can sue the agency over termination as a result of the Covid vaccine mandate.
In August, U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly ruled that plaintiff Kevin McCormick could also continue suing the CTA for possible religious discrimination, and directing the CTA to demonstrate a "rational reason" for firing workers, like McCormick, short of overt discrimination against workers who claimed the mandates forced them to choose between sticking by their religious beliefs or keeping their jobs.
McCormick is represented in that action by attorney Frank B. Avila, of Chicago.