ORLANDO, FL – Liberty Counsel filed a response brief in federal court against United Airlines opposing the airline’s motion to dismiss a religious discrimination lawsuit brought by a former flight attendant. Former flight attendant Jintana Hampton, a dedicated 28-year employee, was fired in February 2022 after the airline unlawfully refused to take part in the Title VII religious accommodation process regarding the COVID-19 shot mandate. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, stems from Hampton’s religious objections to the use of aborted fetal cell lines associated with the COVID shots and the company’s failure under federal law to engage in a good-faith, interactive process with employees who raise religious objections.

Liberty Counsel represents Hampton, and the case, Hampton v. United Airlines, is the third individual lawsuit against the airline by Liberty Counsel involving unlawful religious discrimination. The other two lawsuits are Gates v. United Airlines and DeBusk v. United Airlines, which allege the airline similarly violated Title VII by refusing to accommodate religious exemptions that did not present undue hardships on the company.

Liberty Counsel is seeking a judgment that declares the airline’s religiously discriminatory actions against Hampton violated Title VII and Florida law. The lawsuit also requests Hampton’s reinstatement, or alternatively, front pay that would cover any future wages and benefits she would have likely lost because of the unlawful firing. In addition, the lawsuit requests back pay, compensatory damages for emotional distress, punitive damages, and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.

United Airlines contends the case should be dismissed because Hampton missed a company-wide deadline for exemptions and so it had no obligation to evaluate her request. While that deadline was later blocked by a federal injunction, Liberty Counsel argues Hampton’s request was timely as she was under separate polices for employees on medical leave at the time of the mandate. Regardless of deadlines, when employees submit a religious accommodation request, employers are obligated by law to evaluate it and must engage in the interactive Title VII accommodation process, stated Liberty Counsel. 

As the lawsuit notes, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby expressed public statements and “apparent disdain” for religious exemptions. At a company town hall Kirby declared that “very few” religious exemptions would be granted and warned “any employee [who] all the sudden decided [their] really religious” would be “putting [their] job on the line.” Kirby’s remarks indicate a discriminatory motive for Hampton’s religious exemption denial and her subsequent firing, which add even more reason to deny the airline’s motion to dismiss and allow Hampton’s case to proceed, wrote Liberty Counsel.

Liberty Counsel’s three lawsuits are separate cases 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, Hampton’s Title VII case falls outside the scope of this class action suit because United Airlines refused to even consider her religious accommodation whereby failing to engage in the required interactive process under Title VII.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “United Airlines violated a fundamental principle of employment law: the duty to engage in an interactive process to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs. Under Title VII, employers have a duty to engage with employees and work in good faith when they know a workplace requirement conflicts with an employee’s religious practice. Instead of engaging in the interactive process required by Title VII, United imposed an arbitrary deadline, ignored its own leave policy, and terminated 28-year flight attendant Jintana Hampton 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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