CHATTANOOGA, TN – Liberty Counsel filed a response brief to a Tennessee U.S. District Court in a religious discrimination lawsuit against United Airlines opposing the airline’s motion to dismiss the case or transfer it to Illinois. Former 26-year Contact Center Reservations Supervisor Christina DeBusk was adversely denied retirement and fired for refusing the COVID-19 shot over her religious objections to the use of aborted fetal cell lines in the shot’s manufacture and testing. DeBusk is asking the court to deny the motion to dismiss and keep the case in Tennessee since United’s actions were directed at her in Tennessee where she exclusively lived and worked. 

United Airlines claims Debusk’s decision to live and work in Tennessee was “unilateral” and it never considered her a Tennessee-based employee. The airline also contends Illinois is the best venue for the case for the convenience of its witnesses since that is where its headquarters are located and where its decisions are made.

Liberty Counsel represents DeBusk stating that United Airlines violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating and retaliating against her for not injecting herself with an experimental drug against her sincerely held religious beliefs. Liberty Counsel is seeking a judgment that declares the airline’s religiously discriminatory actions violated Title VII. The lawsuit also requests Debusk’s reinstatement, or alternatively, front pay that would cover any future wages and benefits she would have likely lost because of the unlawful firing.

The response brief notes that DeBusk’s decision to live and work in Tennessee was not “unilateral” since United itself created the work arrangement when it closed its Detroit office in 2016 where DeBusk worked and converted her job to a remote position. DeBusk chose to live and work in Tennessee, a move made possible only by the office closure. United then designated her base as Nashville (BNA) in its own records, and sent all employment-related communications, including its unlawful demand for third-party verification of her religious beliefs and her eventual termination, directly to Tennessee.

The brief also notes that Tennessee is the location where the airline's discrimination has occurred and where DeBusk has suffered harm, and that Tennessee has a strong interest in protecting its residents from unlawful employment practices. Liberty Counsel also emphasizes that DeBusk and multiple witnesses live in Tennessee, including elderly witnesses who would face hardship traveling to Illinois, while United, a major airline, can transport its own employee-witnesses to Tennessee with ease. 

“An employer cannot close an employee’s office, offer remote work as the sole alternative to unemployment, accept the employee’s labor from a particular state for five years, designate the employee’s base as that state, and then disclaim any connection to that state when the employee seeks redress there,” reads the response brief. “Tennessee has a compelling interest in providing a forum for its citizens to vindicate claims of employment discrimination…arising from conduct directed at [DeBusk] within its borders, for harm suffered within its borders.”

This lawsuit, DeBusk v. United Airlines, is a separate case from the nationwide class action suit Sambrano v. United Airlines. In June 2024, a federal judge in Texas granted class action status to more than 2,200 United employees who had received some form of religious accommodation and who were put on indefinite, unpaid leave for choosing not to get the shot. Sambrano is one of the largest class action cases ever filed against a private employer. However, DeBusk’s Title VII case falls outside the scope of this class action suit because United Airlines put unlawful conditions on her religious accommodation request. United required DeBusk to provide verification from a third-party to corroborate her religious beliefs and required remote supervisors like DeBusk to get vaccinated but did not require non-supervisory employees to do so. When she objected to the unlawful demands, United denied her religious accommodation request and her request to retire indicating its actions “were punitive and retaliatory rather than driven by any legitimate business necessity” and were in violation Title VII, concluded Liberty Counsel.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Christina DeBusk’s case belongs in Tennessee where she exclusively lived and worked when she experienced and suffered from United Airlines’ unlawful employment actions. The location of a company’s corporate headquarters is not the determining factor where discrimination cases are heard, rather the operative facts determine jurisdiction, which in this case favor DeBusk in Tennessee. United intentionally and willfully disregarded DeBusk’s rights by terminating her and punitively denying her retirement for refusing to violate her conscience over an experimental injection. Employers cannot force employees to choose between their faith and their livelihood.”

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