Rex Healthcare to Pay $150,000 in EEOC COVID-19 Vaccine Religious Accommodation Suit

RALEIGH, N.C. – Rex Healthcare, Inc., a private, non-profit health care provider in Raleigh, will pay $150,000 and furnish other relief to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) religious accommodation lawsuit, the federal agency announced today.

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Rex Healthcare unlawfully denied a remote employee’s request to be exempted from the provider’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy as a religious accommodation.

Although in 2019 and 2020 Rex Healthcare approved the employee’s requests for a religious exemption from the company’s flu vaccine requirement, it denied each of her four requests for an exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine requirement, rejecting her sincerely held religious belief that receiving vaccines is inconsistent with God’s will, and despite the information she provided in support of her position. Ultimately, the company fired her in November 2021 for refusing to comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, according to the suit.

“Even when faced with unique challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, employers must comply with federal civil rights law,” said Melinda Dugas, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Charlotte District. “The EEOC will continue to take action when an employee’s right to religious freedom has been unnecessarily restricted.”

Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination because of an individual’s religion and requires employers to reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious observance or practice unless doing so would cause an undue hardship. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Rex Healthcare, Inc., Case No. 5:24-cv-00739-BO) in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

In addition to awarding damages to the affected employee, the two-year consent decree settling the suit prohibits Rex Healthcare from discriminating and retaliating against employees based on their religion in the future. Rex Healthcare will also adopt and implement a new policy to address requests for religious accommodation and provide training on religious accommodations for its human resource and employee relations employees involved in the review and approval of requests for religious accommodations, as well as all managers and supervisors.

Gabriel Mondino, trial attorney for the EEOC’s Charlotte District, said, “An employer should look at an employees’ religious beliefs objectively. Unless an employer can show an available accommodation will result in an undue hardship, such as a substantial increase in the costs of conducting business, the employer must accommodate those beliefs when they are sincerely held.”

For more information on religious discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/religious-discrimination.

The EEOC’s Charlotte District is charged with enforcing federal employment anti-discrimination laws in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.