In Donlon v. City of Hornell, (WD NY, Feb. 27, 2023), a New York federal district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction requiring the city to appoint plaintiff to another term as an assistant city court judge. Plaintiff was denied a religious exemption from the New York court system's COVID vaccination mandate. This meant that she was unable to conduct in-person hearings and could not maintain a criminal calendar while working virtually. The court said in part:
Plaintiff has not demonstrated that the City’s alleged reasons for denying her reappointment were either “non-neutral or not generally applicable.”...
In her papers, Plaintiff has a tendency to conflate her vaccination status with her religious beliefs, but the two are distinct....
Plaintiff acknowledges that the City’s concern was not her religious beliefs about vaccination, but the fact that her vaccination status interfered with her “ability to do [her] job while barred from the courtroom.”...
The City’s preference for a candidate who could hold proceedings in person and maintain the criminal caseload required of the position is “religion[] neutral.”... The City is free to prefer such a candidate, and Plaintiff is not, “under the auspices of her religion, constitutionally entitled to an exemption,”... or to “preferential . . . treatment.”... Furthermore, Plaintiff presents no evidence that the City’s preference was not generally applicable—i.e., that the City relied on this preference in a selective manner, imposing “burdens only on conduct motivated by religious belief.”... There were only two candidates for the position, and, in accordance with its “religion-neutral” preference, the City selected an attorney who was vaccinated and could therefore conduct proceedings in person.
