This article was originally published by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. in The Defender.
Saint Luke’s Health Systems improperly fired an employee when it rejected her request for a religious exemption from the hospital system’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the Court of Appeal of the State of Kansas ruled.
On Sept. 14, 2021, Sheryl Glean submitted an online exemption request from the hospital’s vaccine mandate, according to the court opinion issued on Jan. 17. Glean worked at Saint Luke’s South Hospital in Overland Park. Saint Luke’s runs 10 hospitals in Kansas and Missouri.
In her request, Glean said her religious beliefs include that her body is “holy.” She also said she talked with her church pastor about her decision to refuse the vaccine.
The hospital denied the request, the court said, “because it interpreted the language Glean used as expressing a concern about physical harm from the vaccine rather than a sincerely held religious belief against getting the vaccine.”
Saint Luke’s was wrong to interpret Glean’s request that way, the court said:
“Not only did she explain that her refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine is based on her religious views … [she] further evidenced the religiosity of her beliefs when she stated that she had discussed her concerns about getting the vaccine with the pastor from her church.”
The court pointed out that the Kansas law on COVID-19 vaccination requirements specifies that an employer “shall grant an exemption requested in accordance with this section based on sincerely held religious beliefs without inquiring into the sincerity of the request.”
In other words, the hospital was wrong for even questioning the sincerity of Glean’s religious beliefs regarding her request.
Ruling is the latest in back-and-forth legal battle
The Jan. 17 ruling is the latest development in a back-and-forth legal battle that started when Saint Luke’s fired Glean on Nov. 30, 2021, for failing to comply with the vaccination requirement.
Glean sued Saint Luke’s, alleging the hospital had improperly denied her religious exemption request under Kansas law on COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
The law, passed in 2021, requires employers that mandate the COVID-19 vaccine to exempt an employee who submits a written waiver request, as long as the employee states in the request that complying with the mandate would “endanger the life or health of the employee or an individual who resides with the employee,” or “violate sincerely held religious beliefs of the employee.”
The law defines “religious beliefs” as including “theistic and non-theistic moral and ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong that are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views.”
According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, the Kansas Department of Labor sided with Glean, finding that Saint Luke’s had violated the law. However, Saint Luke’s petitioned the Johnson County District Court to review the decision.
The district court decided in Saint Luke’s favor, ruling that Glean hadn’t demonstrated a sincerely held religious belief.
But the Kansas Court of Appeal disagreed. It reversed the district court’s decision, noting that “the district court improperly heightened the requirements under the statute and ignored the context in which they were made.”
‘Another step forward in the ongoing legal fight for justice’
Commenting on the Court of Appeal’s ruling, William D. Mize, an attorney on the board of Kansans for Health Freedom (KSHF) and a member of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Kansas Chapter, said:
“This result reflects the efforts of Kansans for Health Freedom and others in 2021 to protect Kansas employees from the actions of employers like St. Luke’s who chose to terminate them for refusing the Covid-19 vaccine.”
KSHF, CHD Kansas and others pushed to pass the 2021 Kansas law ensuring religious exemptions to the COVID-19 shots, he said.
Lindsey Berning, a also a member of CHD Kansas and KSHF, said Kansas lawmakers intentionally included verbiage in the law about how employers should not question the sincerity of an employee’s religious beliefs. “The sort of mistreatment and discrimination by St. Luke’s is exactly what the lawmakers intended to avoid by adding this verbiage.”
She added:
“Employers do not have the right to grant or deny a religious exemption request based on their own evaluation of what someone’s religious beliefs are or how ‘sincere’ those beliefs are. Doing so would sabotage the integrity of having a religious exemption in the first place and go against the concept of freedom of religion entirely.”
Attorney John Coyle also criticized the district court for improperly “scrutinizing” Glean’s stated religious beliefs. Coyle represents a New Jersey nurse who sued her employer for refusing to grant her religious exemption request from the hospital’s flu vaccine mandate.
Coyle called the Court of Appeal’s decision “another step forward in the ongoing legal fight for justice on behalf of employees who were discriminated against on the basis of their religious objection to their employer’s COVID vaccination requirement.”
“Keep fighting for your rights,” Coyle said. “History will judge harshly those who stood on the wrong side of this.”