Employer-Employee: Religious Discrimination-Failure to Accommodate-Vaccine Mandates

Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of her complaint under Title VII and the Minnesota Human Rights Act, alleging religious discrimination due to defendant’s failure to accommodate plaintiff’s religious objections to defendant’s vaccine mandate and subjecting plaintiff to restrictions that visibly differentiated her from vaccinated employees. Defendant’s vaccine policy allowed vaccinated employees to wear an orange badge that allowed them to remove their masks in certain areas. Plaintiff argued that the badges singled out unvaccinated employees for ridicule and scorn.

Where plaintiff’s allegations raised an inference of discrimination because defendant singled out employees who had not gotten the vaccine for religious reasons by granting vaccinated employees visible badges, the district court erred by dismissing the case at the pleadings stage.

Judgment is reversed and remanded.

Cole v. Group Health Plan, Inc. (MLW No. 81727/Case No. 23-3050 – 6 pages) (U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit, Erickson, J.) Appealed from U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, Wright, J. (Gregory Martin Erickson, of Minneapolis, MN for appellant; Vincent J. Fahnlander, of Minneapolis, MN on the brief) (Jody A. Ward-Rannow, of Minneapolis, MN for appellee; Nathan Tyler Boone, of Minneapolis, MN on the brief)