A Catholic woman has won a significant religious discrimination lawsuit, receiving nearly $13 million in damages after refusing to comply with her employer’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for religious reasons.
Lisa Domski, a Catholic IT specialist who worked remotely for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, filed the lawsuit after the company implemented the vaccine mandate. Domski, citing her religious beliefs, requested an accommodation, explaining her concerns about the fetal cells used in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines.
She felt that getting vaccinated would make her complicit in abortion, as the cells were derived from tissue obtained during abortions. Her request for exemption was denied, and she was subsequently fired in January 2022.
In the lawsuit, Domski was awarded nearly $1.7 million in back pay and front pay, along with $1 million in non-economic damages. Additionally, she received $10 million in punitive damages, which are only awarded when a defendant is found to have acted in a malicious or reckless manner. Blue Cross Blue Shield has expressed disappointment with the verdict and is reviewing its legal options.
Domski’s case is one of many filed across the U.S. by employees who sought religious exemptions to vaccine mandates. While some employees have found success in securing religious accommodations, others have not, with the courts often siding with employers.
In the past, courts typically deferred to employers on whether accommodating religious exemptions would impose an undue burden on business operations.
However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue gained more attention, and some religious freedom advocates pushed for broader exemptions. In response, a number of states have passed laws requiring wider religious exemptions to vaccine mandates. Despite this, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected opportunities to intervene in several vaccine mandate cases, leaving rulings that favor employers intact.
Regarding Catholic teaching, religious leaders initially attempted to mitigate conflict by stating that the COVID-19 vaccines did not violate church teachings on abortion.
The Vatican declared that taking the vaccine did not constitute cooperation with abortion, but emphasized that it was not endorsing the use of cell lines derived from aborted fetuses.
Despite this stance, some individuals, including Domski, remained firm in their belief that the vaccines conflicted with their religious convictions, leading to her lawsuit.
Domski’s victory highlights an important legal precedent in religious freedom cases, where courts typically defer to an individual’s interpretation of their faith, rather than official religious teachings. In this case, the jury found that Blue Cross Blue Shield violated both federal and state laws prohibiting religious discrimination.
