Judge Throws Out Lawsuit By Employees Over COVID-19 Vaccination Requirement

Employees of a Houston hospital group filed a lawsuit that has been thrown out by a judge over requiring employees to be COVID-19 vaccinated.

According to the Midland Reporter-Telegram, last week the Houston Methodist Hospital System suspended, without pay, 178 employees for refusing to get vaccinated.

Some of those employees filed a lawsuit against the hospital but U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes threw out their claims that the vaccine is "experimental and dangerous" to be false and threw out their case.

The judge also took issue with the lead plaintiff, Jennifer Bridges, likening the vaccination requirement to the Nazi's forcing medical experimentation on captives during the Holocaust as being "reprehensible."

The judge also ruled that making vaccinations an employment requirement was not coercion as lead plaintiff Bridges claimed.

“[Jennifer] Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” said Judge Hughes.

An appeal was guaranteed by Jared Woodfill, the lawyer representing Bridges and the other employees.

“All of my clients continue to be committed to fighting this unjust policy,” Woodfill said in a statement. “What is shocking is that many of my clients were on the front line treating COVID-positive patients at Texas Methodist Hospital during the height of the pandemic. As a result, many of them contracted COVID-19. As a thank you for their service and sacrifice, Methodist Hospital awards them a pink slip and sentences them to bankruptcy.”

The employees were given till June 7 to get their vaccines.

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