Sometimes, it – literally – pays off to stand true to your principles and religious convictions.
Lisa Domski worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for 38 years as an IT specialist. When the insurance company imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on its employees, Domski requested a religious exemption from the insurance provider.
Domski said taking a COVID shot conflicted with her Catholic faith because the three COVID-19 vaccines approved at the time had been developed or tested using fetal cell lines that originated from aborted babies.
On top of that, Domski worked entirely remote during the pandemic, so she posed no risk of spreading COVID-19 to her colleagues.
Nonetheless, Blue Cross Blue Shield denied her request, and unceremoniously fired her.
In response, Domski’s lawyer Jon Marko filed a lawsuit on her behalf.
“This was a woman who was working from home in her basement office who wasn’t a threat to anybody and was completely fulfilling all of her job obligations for 38 years,” Marko told Fox News.
“They made up their minds that they were going to discriminate against people who had sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The jury in the case agreed with Domski, finding Blue Cross violated state and federal law by denying her exemption. According to Liberty Counsel, “Domski’s lawsuit had accused Blue Cross of violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act for disparate treatment and by failing to make reasonable accommodation for an employee’s religious beliefs.”
The jury awarded her over $12 million, including $10 million in punitive damages against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, an additional $1.7 million in lost wages and $1 million in noneconomic damages.
In a statement after the judgement, Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan said it was “disappointed” in the verdict while adding it “respects the jury process and thanks the individual jurors for their service.”
“In October 2021, Blue Cross, and its subsidiaries, enacted a vaccine policy requiring all of its employees to be fully vaccinated for Covid-19 or obtain a religious or medical accommodation,” the organization said. “In implementing the vaccine policy, Blue Cross designed an accommodation process that complied with state and federal law and respected the sincerely held religious beliefs of its employees.”
Apparently, their accommodation process failed to include Ms. Domski.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said in a statement,
Indeed, her win is a victory for religious freedom and reminds employers that religious liberty is not a second-class right. It’s one of our nation’s most fundamental freedom, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Hopefully large corporations will think twice before dismissing their employee’s religious beliefs for no good reason at all.
Related articles and resources:
University of Colorado Vax Mandate Ruled Unconstitutional
Florida Grand Jury Releases Report Finding Masks, Lockdowns Were Harmful and Ineffective
We Can Never Let Them Close Churches and Schools Again
U.S. Marine Corps Won’t Dismiss Troops With Religious Objections to COVID-19 Shots
Justice Sotomayor’s Inaccurate COVID-19 Claims Hurts the Court’s Legitimacy
Millions of Children Have Received the COVID-19 Vaccine. But Are Kids Really at Risk from COVID?
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