Plaintiff appealed the judgment of a United States Federal District Court granting summary judgment in favor of the Defendant [School District]. Plaintiff had alleged that the School District [1] "did not provide a reasonable accommodation for her religious beliefs when she refused to receive a COVID-19 vaccination or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing" and [2] retaliated against her based upon those beliefs by placing her on unpaid leave in violation of §3020-a of New York State's Education Law.
The United States Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the Federal District Court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of the School District and in declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s New York state law claims and affirmed the judgment of the district court.
The district court held that the School District did not violate Title VII because Plaintiff's requested accommodations were not reasonable, concluding that granting Plaintiff the requested exemption [1] would have caused the District to violate state law; [2] permitting Plaintiff to work remotely would have prohibited [Plaintiff] from performing necessary in-person job functions; and [3] caused the District to incur substantial costs by hiring a replacement to cover [Plaintiff's] in-person tasks."
Addressing Plaintiff's religious discrimination claim, the Circuit Court concluded that "Even assuming arguendo that [Plaintiff] stated a prima facie religious discrimination claim, the district court correctly determined that summary judgment in the District’s favor was warranted based upon the undue hardship posed by the requested exemption from the vaccine or testing mandate and by the proposed accommodation to allow her to work remotely".
Referring to Second Circuit precedent, the Circuit Court, citing Bey v. City of New York, 999 F.3d 157 and Cassano v. Carb, 436 F.3d 74, noted "an accommodation that would require an employer to violate the law imposes an undue hardship". Accordingly, the Circuit Court opined that summary judgment in the School District’s favor was warranted "based upon the undue hardship posed by the requested exemption from the vaccine or testing mandate and by the proposed accommodation to allow [Plaintiff] to work remotely"
With respect to Plaintiff's claim asserted pursuant to the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act [GINA], the district court had concluded that personal and family vaccine history did not constitute genetic information within the meaning of the statute and thus Plaintiff failed to show that the questions asked by the School District concerning her family’s medical history violated GINA. The Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
Click HERE to access the Second Circuit Court's decision posted on the Internet.