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New Jersey Jury Awards More Than $670,000 to Fired Worker Denied COVID Vaccine Exemption
A unanimous jury found that Essex County intentionally discriminated against Theodore “Teddy” DeBlasio because of his Christian faith after he sought an exemption from the county’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Court records showed the county denied every exemption request from Christian employees but granted every request from Muslims. The jury awarded DeBlasio $621,773 in back pay and $50,000 for emotional distress.
For more than four years, Theodore “Teddy” DeBlasio lived with a question no employee should have to ask: whether standing by his faith could cost him his livelihood.
His case ultimately became a test of whether religious accommodations were applied fairly during the COVID-19 vaccine mandate era. In a unanimous 8-0 verdict, a New Jersey jury found that Essex County intentionally discriminated against DeBlasio because of his Christian religion.
Represented by New Jersey civil rights attorney John D. Coyle of the Coyle Law Group, PC, DeBlasio challenged whether religious accommodations were applied fairly during the COVID-19 mandate era.
In the closing argument, Coyle asked the jury a critical question: Would Essex County have treated DeBlasio’s request differently if he had been Muslim? A jury of his peers — people of different faiths, races, and walks of life — answered yes.
By an 8-0 margin, the jury found that DeBlasio proved, by a preponderance of the credible evidence, that it was more likely than not that Essex County engaged in intentional discrimination against him by terminating his employment based on his Christian religion.
When the verdict was read, DeBlasio burst into tears.
“This was never only about a vaccine,” Coyle said. “It was about whether a county government can pick and choose whose faith is worthy of respect. Teddy DeBlasio is a working man who asked only to keep his job without betraying his conscience. Eight jurors looked at the evidence and refused to look away.”
The jury awarded $621,773 in back pay and $50,000 for emotional distress — $671,773 in all. Attorneys’ fees will be added on application to the court. The case, DeBlasio v. Essex County, Docket No. ESX-L-5665-22, is New Jersey’s first jury verdict in a COVID-19 religious exemption case, and one of only a handful of such verdicts nationwide.
The request, and the refusal
DeBlasio is a Christian who defines his faith through his personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
On Nov. 19, 2021, he asked the County for an exemption from its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, citing a sincerely held religious opposition to injecting a vaccine tested or developed using aborted fetal cells. The request, his lawyers said, was not a slogan. It was a line he would not cross.
The County said no. He was removed from his duties without pay on Jan. 28, 2022, and ultimately fired.
DeBlasio, who is in his 60s and has a high school education, was not able to find another job. He now works caring for an elderly family member.
Essex County maintained that federal and state regulations obligated it to impose a mandatory vaccine policy. Those same policies, said Coyle, required the County to excuse employees who object on the basis of sincere religious belief.
The case went to trial after the County made no settlement offer. Attorney Kevin Eppinger from McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter represented the County.
County rejected exemptions for Christians, Catholics — granted them for Muslims
The disparity that carried the case was not abstract. The jury heard that 12 Christian employees sought exemptions from the mandatory vaccine policy and that none were granted. Two Muslim employees sought exemptions, and both were granted.
In February 2022, the evidence showed, Essex County denied every religious exemption request submitted by Christian and Catholic employees and approved every request submitted by Muslim employees.
The two Muslim employees who were accommodated — a nurse and a hospital attendant at the County’s psychiatric hospital, Essex County Hospital Center — were allowed to keep working directly with patients, unvaccinated, as long as they wore masks and took regular tests.
DeBlasio’s duties at the same facility were cutting grass, planting flowers, shoveling snow, and raking leaves. The County told the jury he was too great a health and safety risk to keep on the grounds.
“The fact that Essex County granted accommodations to Muslims means that they were available and Christians like Teddy could have been accommodated. This is even more stark when Essex County was able to accommodate a Muslim nurse and a hospital attendant, but not a Christian groundskeeper.”
Over four and a half years of litigation, the County offered shifting and contradictory explanations for treating Christian workers one way and Muslim workers another. The story changed every time. The disparity did not.
What the verdict means for employers
For employers, the verdict is a warning about uneven application. A policy that excuses some sincere religious objections and rejects others — particularly where the employees who are accommodated work closer to patients than the employee who is fired — is difficult to defend as a neutral health-and-safety judgment.
Coyle, who tried the case with the firm’s Lili J. Caparosa, has reached settlements in more than fifty workplace COVID-vaccine disputes and said he knows of no other trial on the same topic in New Jersey. Coyle Law Group tried the case against a defense firm with offices in nine states and more than a hundred attorneys.
Coyle has spent years defending employees who sought religious and medical exemptions, including more than a thousand exemption matters and dozens of lawsuits and arbitrations arising from denied COVID-19 exemptions.
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