St. Vincent workers who declined COVID-19 vaccine sue hospital for religious discrimination

Dozens of St. Vincent Health and Ascension Health workers in Indiana who were suspended without pay for not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine are asking a federal court to open a class action lawsuit.

The 64 workers claim the hospital network discriminated against them because they objected to the vaccine on religious grounds.

"Ascension Health established a coercive process calculated to force healthcare workers and staff to abandon their religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccination and receive the vaccination against their will," the lawsuit claims. Ascension Health owns St. Vincent Health. 

In July 2021 Ascension Health announced a requirement that its associates had to get the COVID-19 vaccination by November. There are roughly 14,700 associates in Indiana. 

More:Indiana St. Vincent hospitals will require associates to be vaccinated against coronavirus

Ascension Health said in a July news release that "tens of thousands" of its workers had already been vaccinated. "But we must do more to overcome this pandemic as we provide safe environments for those we serve," the release stated. 

Like other hospital networks in Indiana, St. Vincent Health allowed workers to get an exemption if the vaccine conflicted with religious beliefs or medical conditions. But the 64 workers who filed the lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana say St. Vincent Health and its parent company "failed to individually and properly assess each application for religious exemption."

A St. Vincent Health spokesperson declined to speak about the allegations, saying they are not able to comment on pending litigation. IndyStar also requested comment from Ascension Health. 

"Ascension Health’s pressure tactics involved delaying final decisions on requests for religious exemptions and denying applications for exemption within time frames that gave applicants little time after denial to consider options other than vaccination," the lawsuit claims. 

More:Hospitals offer exemption for COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Many employees took it.

As a result, the plaintiffs were suspended without pay from Nov. 12 until Dec. 17. They were originally told they'd be fired Jan. 4 if they didn't get the vaccine, the lawsuit claims, but around Dec. 17 the hospital network began telling people who claimed religious exemptions that they could return to work. 

The workers are asking the federal court to find that the hospital network violated federal discrimination law, and to order the hospital network to pay them for the time they spent out of work. They're also requesting financial compensation for the alleged harms. 

While the lawsuit lists 64 plaintiffs, lawyers estimate that hundreds more may have been affected.

Not the first lawsuit against St. Vincent

Attorneys leading the class action lawsuit filed a similar lawsuit against Ascension Health and St. Vincent Health in November on behalf of five workers who said their religious exemption requests were denied.

The five workers asked the same federal court to force St. Vincent Health to let them return to work.

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In December, four of those employees were told they could return to their jobs. The fifth worker in that lawsuit — pediatric critical care physician Dr. Paul Halczenko — was not allowed to return to his job at the Peyton Manning Children's Hospital in Indianapolis because St. Vincent Health said the threat posed by an unvaccinated associate who works with acutely ill pediatric patients posed too great of a risk.

Under federal discrimination law, businesses do not have to accommodate religious exemptions if they can show that such an accommodation could place undue hardship on their business.

More:End of Indiana's public emergency in sight after Senate OKs bill limiting vaccine mandates

One claim from the doctor was that his specialized medical skills would deteriorate if he was not allowed to practice. Federal Judge James Patrick Hanlon still denied Halczenko's request. "The harm that Dr. Halczenko has sufficiently established — atrophy in his medical skills during the pendency of this case — may constitute a high hurdle in his career's future, but not irreparable injury," Hanlon wrote. 

Halczenko appealed. His case is now in front of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. 

The lawsuit filed Friday is against 21 defendants, including St. Vincent Health and Ascension Health as well as their facilities in Indianapolis, Carmel, Anderson, Evansville, Williamsport, Kokomo, Boonville, Bedford and Fishers. Read the legal complaint here.

Call IndyStar courts reporter Johnny Magdaleno at 317-273-3188 or email him at jmagdaleno@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @IndyStarJohnny