The COVID Pandemic still looms over employers and serves as a battle ground over religious freedoms in the workplace.
On Monday, an Illinois federal court refused to grant summary judgment in favor of the Chicago Transit Authority (“CTA”) dismissing a claim by a former CTA employee who alleges that he was denied a reasonable religious accommodation for his refusal to take the COVID vaccine and was subsequently terminated on those grounds.
The Court and the CTA both acknowledged that Boyd had sincerely held religious beliefs that conflicted with the CTA’s vaccination policy. The CTA claims it engaged in a dialogue with Boyd when it looked into and ultimately rejected Boyd’s preferred accommodation. The Court, however, held that a “reasonable jury could find” the CTA’s response insufficient, and that “it was at least possible that there were alternative accommodations the CTA could have considered.” In so ruling, the Court also left for the jury the constitutional question of whether the CTA (a government agency) used the “least restrictive means when denying Mr. Boyd a religious accommodation from its vaccination policy,” as required of government actors under the First Amendment.
This decision comes on the heels of another adverse decision against the CTA in a similar matter. In August, an Illinois federal jury awarded a former CTA employee $425,000 in damages after finding that the CTA discriminated against him after it denied him a reasonable accommodation when he refused to take the COVID vaccine for religious reasons and later terminated him (a judge later capped that award at $300,000).
This case serves as a reminder to employers to consider all options and confer with counsel when analyzing potential reasonable accommodations and to engage in such conversations in good faith.