Federal Agency Urges Court to Rule for Mayo Clinic Workers Fired for Refusing COVID Vaccines

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., on Sept. 29, 2020. Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images

Workers fired by the Mayo Clinic for refusing COVID-19 vaccines were wrongly turned down by a federal court, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said in a new filing.

Nurse Shelly Kiel and paramedic Kenneth Ringhofer plausibly made their cases that they held a religious belief that requires accommodation under federal law, the EEOC said in an Oct. 31 amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim wrongly rejected the claims from the former Mayo Clinic workers, the EEOC said.

“As the burden to plausibly plead a religious belief is light, courts should not resolve the nature of such beliefs on a motion to dismiss unless they cannot reasonably infer that the relevant belief is religious,” the executive branch agency said.

Judge Tunheim, appointed under President Bill Clinton, ruled in August that Ms. Kiel’s belief that her body is a temple and that vaccination was impure was not sufficiently tied to religion and that Mr. Ringhofer’s position represented personal judgment, not a religious belief.

“The Mayo Clinic plaintiffs are absolutely thrilled with the EEOC’s decision to intervene,” Gregory Erickson, a lawyer representing the former workers, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Cases Launched

Former Mayo Clinic workers launched cases against the nonprofit in 2022, alleging the clinic discriminated against them by refusing to acknowledge that their religious beliefs prevented them from receiving COVID-19 vaccines.

The Mayo Clinic imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate in 2021, while stating it expected that only “a small number of staff will have qualifying religious exemption.”

Ms. Kiel is a Christian who says her religious beliefs would be violated by receiving a COVID-19 vaccine in part because she sees her body “as a temple to the Holy Spirit” and the vaccines are “impure or dangerous,” according to court filings.

Mr. Ringhofer, also a Christian, “is strongly against abortion and it violates his religious beliefs and conscience to take the Covid-19 vaccine because the vaccines were developed with fetal cell lines,” his lawsuit stated.

The Mayo Clinic rejected the religious exemption requests using the same language, including, “Based on the information provided, your request did not meet the criteria for a religious exemption accommodation.”

The workers submitted additional information and asked for reconsideration, but that process did not result in exemptions. They were told to receive vaccines or face termination.

The workers were among the hundreds fired in January 2022 for refusing to receive COVID-19 vaccines.

The cases from Ms. Kiel and Mr. Ringhofer were eventually consolidated with three others, and Judge Tunheim dismissed them all.

Dismissal

Several of the claims were barred by time constraints, while another was dismissed because the plaintiff did not show how a different requirement, of weekly COVID-19 testing, conflicted with her religious beliefs, the judge ruled.

Judge Tunheim also found that Ms. Kiel did not adequately show she held a religious belief in opposition to the vaccine mandate and deemed Mr. Ringhofer’s opposition “a personal medical judgement” as opposed to a religious belief.

Judge Tunheim ruled against Ms. Kiel in part because, he said, “many Christians who oppose abortion still receive vaccines.” He also said that Ms. Kiel “fails to tie her opposition to the vaccine to any particularized religious belief.”

Mr. Ringhofer, according to the judge, did not allege that his opposition was “religious in nature.”

Both parts of the ruling were wrong, the EEOC said, pointing to its guidance to employers on Title VII and prior court rulings.

A belief such as Ms. Kiel’s “may be religious even if the plaintiff’s ‘interpretation of the scriptures ... differ from the meaning members of his church generally find in that text,’” the EEOC noted, pointing to a prior ruling and its manual. “The Supreme Court rejected a similar attempt to parse what a person with a religious belief against abortion believed would make them complicit, holding that ‘it is not for us to say that the line [drawn] was an unreasonable one,’” the agency added.

Mr. Ringhofer also provided evidence in favor of his case, including the alleged belief that his body is a temple, according to the agency.

The beliefs help the workers satisfy the “minimal burden” that is required to survive a motion to dismiss, the EEOC said.

“The court discounted these beliefs by concluding that they expressed personal preferences, but a religious belief may overlap with a personal preference or political belief without ‘plac[ing] it outside the scope of Title VII’s religious protections,’” the agency said, again quoting from its manual.

In their appeal to the appeals court, appellants also said the judge erred in granting the Mayo Clinic’s motion to dismiss.

“The district court erred by misapplying the law on bona fide religious beliefs, and relied on several brand new, unreported, district court cases to support the dismissals,” lawyers for the former workers said. “The court should instead have applied long-established United States Supreme Court precedent, this court’s precedents, and applicable district court cases, to deny” the attempt to dismiss the case.

“The EEOC saw this David v. Goliath contest, saw a clear violations of Title VII and clearly established law, and decided to intervene on behalf of the little guy to tip the scales in favor of justice,” Mr. Erickson said. “We are hopeful that the 8th Circuit will provide a quick reversal so these wronged employees can continue to pursue their claims.”

The Mayo Clinic has until Nov. 24 to submit its reply.