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An Oklahoma manufacturer will pay $4.25 million to more than 40 former employees after federal officials found the company violated anti-discrimination laws when it enforced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate without allowing religious or medical exemptions, according to a settlement announced this week.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said A G Equipment Company, which makes natural gas compressor systems, implemented a companywide vaccine requirement in 2021 and told workers no exemptions would be permitted.
Employees who later requested religious or medical accommodations were not engaged in a review process and were instead terminated, according to the EEOC.
The agency alleged that on Oct. 15, 2021, the company fired all 43 workers who had not provided proof of vaccination, including those who had formally sought exemptions.
Federal officials said the company’s actions violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Both laws require employers to consider reasonable accommodations for sincerely held religious beliefs and certain medical conditions unless doing so would cause undue hardship.
Under the three-year consent decree settling the case, the company will provide $4.25 million in monetary relief to the workers. It will also be required to implement training on anti-discrimination laws, revise its accommodation policies, and notify employees of their right to request religious or disability-based exemptions, according to the EEOC.
EEOC officials said employers remain obligated to evaluate accommodation requests even during public health emergencies.
“When these workers asked for a simple religious accommodation, the company didn’t pause to listen or even consider the impact,” Patrick J. Holman, a trial attorney with the EEOC’s Oklahoma City Area Office, said in a statement. “It fired every one of them outright — without a conversation and without any real inquiry into whether granting an accommodation would have caused the business any hardship at all.”
A G Equipment told The Defender they “resolved” the matter. The company said in a statement:
“We have taken meaningful steps to strengthen our workplace, policies, and culture. Those steps include adding an employee hotline, implementing a behavior-based safety program, establishing more structured pay practices, and building a leadership team grounded in accountability, communication, and respect.
“We are committed to a workplace where employees are heard, treated fairly, and supported in doing their best work. Our focus remains on supporting our employees, serving our customers, and moving the company forward.”
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma after an investigation and attempted pre-litigation settlement process, officials said.
‘Significant change’ leading to more litigation
The settlement underscores a growing number of cases involving workplace religious accommodations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
One of the most notable cases involved Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, where a federal jury awarded more than $12 million to Lisa Domski, a Catholic information technology employee who said she was fired after requesting a religious exemption from the company’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement.
Jurors found that Blue Cross wrongfully terminated Domski after denying her accommodation request.
Employment attorney Joshua Goodbaum said the legal landscape surrounding such religious accommodations has shifted significantly since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Groff v. DeJoy.
In the ruling, the court clarified that employers seeking to deny a religious accommodation must show the request would impose “substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of the employer’s particular business.”
The Groff v. DeJoy ruling replaced the long-standing interpretation from TWA v. Hardison that allowed employers to reject accommodations over more than a minimal cost.
“This represents a significant change, and it has resulted in much more deference to requests for religious accommodations,” Goodbaum said.
He said courts still have not fully defined how the standard compares with the Americans with Disabilities Act’s “undue hardship” requirement or whether employers must engage in the same kind of “interactive dialogue” process used in disability accommodation cases.
The settlement is one of several similar federal resolutions involving employers accused of refusing to consider vaccine exemption requests during the pandemic, according to the agency.
The EEOC’s recent $15 million conciliation agreement with an unnamed global technology company is among the largest federal resolutions tied to COVID-19 vaccine mandate disputes.
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No ‘holy grail’ of vaccine mandate wins
Some legal experts believe the Oklahoma case is less about vaccine mandates and more about employer rules.
Nicholas Woodfield, a principal at The Employment Law Group, P.C., said recent COVID-19 vaccine accommodation rulings are not sweeping victories for anti-vaccine employees, but rather reaffirm longstanding employment law requiring employers to properly evaluate religious and disability accommodation requests.
“I don’t think the [COVID-19 vaccine accommodation] cases will necessarily be more successful,” Woodfield said, noting many claims may still face statutes of limitations, including EEOC filing deadlines that generally require complaints within 300 days.
Woodfield noted that employers must engage in an “interactive process” when workers request accommodations and cannot automatically deny requests. The key legal question is whether an employee can safely perform the essential functions of the job with or without accommodation.
“This is not the anti-vaccine holy grail of wins where everyone is feeling vindicated,” he said. “This is saying that when someone comes forward, you have to take their request at face value, conduct the inquiry and make a legitimate determination.”
On Monday, a key U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) official recommended the U.S. Supreme Court deny an appeal by former New York healthcare workers who lost their jobs after their COVID-19 vaccine religious exemptions were denied.
Attorneys for the workers said the DOJ’s recommendation could weigh heavily in the court’s decision, but that case could still play out in the lower courts.
Related articles in The Defender
- DOJ Sides With Employers Who Fired Healthcare Workers Over COVID Vaccine Mandate
- Mayo Clinic Joins List of Employers Sued for Denying Religious Exemptions to COVID Vaccine Mandates
- Global Tech Co. to Pay $15 Million in COVID Vaccine Discrimination Case
- Employees Sue Texas Hospital Over COVID Vaccine Mandate
