Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida against United Airlines on behalf of a former flight attendant whose religious rights were violated when the company unlawfully refused to take part in the Title VII religious accommodation process and fired her over its 2021 COVID-19 shot mandate. The religious discrimination lawsuit stems from former flight attendant Jintana Hampton’s religious objections to the use of aborted fetal cell lines associated with the COVID shots. Liberty Counsel represents Hampton stating that United Airlines violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Florida Civil Rights Act by discriminating against her for not injecting herself with an experimental drug against her sincerely held religious beliefs.

Hampton v. United Airlines is the third individual lawsuit against the airline filed by Liberty Counsel this week 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.

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.

Hampton was on medical leave when the company’s mandate took effect. Under the airline’s own policy, employees on leave could submit accommodation requests closer to their return date than an earlier arbitrary deadline set for active employees. The arbitrary deadline had also been blocked by a federal court injunction in Sambrano where United Airlines conveyed to the court it would not enforce the deadline. However, United Airlines ignored the court injunction and its own leave policy to deny Hampton’s religious accommodation citing she had missed the deadline. The airline subsequently refused to engage in the required interactive Title VII process.

At a company town hall in 2021, United CEO Scott Kirby expressed “apparent disdain” for religious exemptions and indicated the company would grant as few as possible.

The lawsuit reads, “Kirby declared that ‘very few’ religious exemptions would be granted and then warned ‘any employee [who] all the sudden decided I’m really religious’ would unequivocally be ‘putting your job on the line. You’d better be very careful about that.’”

While United was holding religious employees to the mandate or face termination, the lawsuit states that the airline allowed numerous other exemptions for foreign-based employees, certain pilots on certain company routes, third party caterers, and contractors in United facilities, and of course, all passengers. 

“United’s stated reason for terminating [Hampton]—that she failed to comply with submission deadline—was false and pretextual,” reads the lawsuit. “[Hampton] attempted to comply by seeking an accommodation in accordance with United’s policy for employees on leave. Her only ‘failure’ was relying on United’s own written guidance, which United arbitrarily ignored.”

For twenty-eight years, Hampton served as a dedicated flight attendant working through holidays, missed family milestones, and even sacrificed vacations so coworkers could be with their families.

“Instead, [United] treated her nearly three decades of service like expired frequent-flyer miles,” stated the lawsuit. “United’s conduct was intentional, willful, and in reckless disregard of [Hampton’s] rights 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.”