Texas Federal Ct. Rules Covid-19 Vaccine Requirement for Healthcare Workers at Houston Methodist Hospital is Legal - Houston Methodist Hospital Action Filed by Health Care Workers Dismissed

At-Will Employment at Heart of Dispute

Texas Federal Court Determines That Employees Do Not Have to Get Vaccines, but Employer Houston Methodist Hospital is Free to Terminate Their Employment if They Do Not

Last week, we posted that the EEOC had issued a directive stating that an employer's Covid-19 vaccine requirement did not violate Title VII or the Americans With disabilities Act, provided that exceptions were allowed for legitimate medical and/or religious reasons.

On June 13, Texas federal judge Lynn Hughes issued a decision (which is not yet available on line) wherein he dismissed the lawsuit of more that 100 health care workers at Houston Methodist Hospital that the Hospital's policy mandate that all workers had to get vaccinated. The workers based their claims that they should be free from the vaccine requirement not based on medical or religious reasons but, rather, on the principal that the hospita; "was forcing its employees to be human 'guinea pigs' as a condition for future employment."

Newspaper With Headline "At Will Employment"

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Perhaps there is really nothing terribly surprising about this decision. Most Americans are "employed at-will," and thus can be fired for any reason that is not illegal.

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The plaintiffs in this case did not assert that they were protected from the vaccine requirement by state or federal law (there is not law that protects workers from discrimination based upon their decision to get vaccinated, nor is there one that protects employees from being required to comply with a a company's health and welfare protocols absent disability or religious belief), so the case could be read as having been decided in accordance with the employment at will doctrine doctrine.

First Federal Court Decision on Vaccine Requirement for Workers

Judge Hughes echoed this principal in published reports we have seen so far. Here is one example:

The workers alleged in their lawsuit that the hospital was "forcing its employees to be human 'guinea pigs' as a condition for continued employment." They also accused the hospital of violating the Nuremberg Code of 1947, likening the vaccine mandate to Nazi medical experimentation on concentration camp prisoners.
US District Judge Lynn Hughes was not sympathetic to either argument, writing in his order of dismissal Saturday evening that none of the employees were forced or coerced to take the vaccine. He also noted that the hospital cannot violate the Nuremberg Code because it is a private employer, not a government.
"Equating the injection requirement to medical experimentation in concentration camps is reprehensible," Hughes wrote. "Nazi doctors conducted medical experiments on victims that caused pain, mutilation, permanent disability, and in many cases, death."
He added that the workers were free to accept or reject a vaccine and that they would "simply need to work elsewhere" if they chose the latter.
"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 his remuneration," Hughes wrote. "That is all part of the bargain."