Liberty Counsel filed a reply brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Does 1-3 v. Hochul on behalf of three New York health care workers who were fired for refusing to take the COVID shot due to their deeply held religious convictions. The health care workers are petitioning the High Court to review their case where New York implemented a rule that conflicts with Title VII protections against religious discrimination in the workplace. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, contrary to other circuits, denied the health care workers’ claims for religious accommodation and gave precedence to a New York state law requiring covered healthcare employers to ignore Title VII’s command for employers to reasonably accommodate religious beliefs. Liberty Counsel argues federal law is not “subservient” to state law and that SCOTUS can resolve this conflict to protect the religious rights of health care workers. 

In 2021, New York enacted a law requiring health care employers to mandate that employees get the COVID shot. The law directed hospitals to “continuously require personnel to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19,” and the law did not authorize any religious exemption. Under the law, employers that failed to comply would face daily fines and revocation of their business licenses. The defendant hospitals clearly understood the state’s threat that they would face fines and revocation of their licenses for noncompliance. Every request for a religious exemption was denied. 

The health care workers are ultimately asking the High Court to uphold the authority of federal law. The reply brief begins:

“This case presents an ideal vehicle to address the Second Circuit’s decision allowing employers to disregard binding federal law by relying on a contrary state law. The implications are staggering. If unchecked, this decision will allow states to pass laws that force employers, educational institutions, and businesses to violate applicable federal laws.”

In this case, New York’s COVID-19 shot mandate required that state employers force employees to get the injection but unlawfully denied religious exemptions while approving nonreligious medical exemptions. While Title VII prohibits this discrimination, the Second Circuit held that employers did not violate Title VII because granting a religious exemption would have violated the state’s mandate for every employee to get the shot. This directly conflicts with other decisions from the Second, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeal, which ruled that state laws must yield to federal laws regarding discrimination requirements. 

The two questions Liberty Counsel presents in the petition to the High Court are: 

1. Whether compliance with state laws directly contrary to Title VII’s requirement to provide a reasonable accommodation may serve as an undue hardship justifying an employer’s noncompliance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  

2. Whether a state law that requires employers to deny without any consideration all requests by employees for a religious accommodation, contrary to Title VII’s religious nondiscrimination provision, is preempted by Title VII and the Supremacy Clause.  

In the petition, Liberty Counsel notes that the Second Circuit’s decision cannot be reconciled with the Supremacy Clause where “federal law is supreme over any contrary state law.” This reflects an ever-increasing problem among the lower courts where some are upholding Title VII over a contrary state law while others are permitting noncompliance favoring state laws that are at odds with Title VII. 

In fact, a state law at odds with Title VII is no law at all, and it must yield to the demands of federal anti-discrimination law, noted Liberty Counsel.

Liberty Counsel represents the three health care workers against Trinity Health, Inc., New York Presbyterian Healthcare System, Inc., and Westchester Medical Center Advanced Physician Services, P.C.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The State of New York forced health care workers to choose between their livelihoods and their religious convictions without any consideration for accommodation. We are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve this important case where New York threatened employers with fines and revocation of their business licenses if they complied with federal law by granting even one employee an exemption from the COVID shots because of their religious beliefs. New York cannot set aside federal employment law that protects employees from religious discrimination.”