Here at the Law Office of Vincent Miletti, Esq. and the home of the #UnusuallyMotivated movement, we take pride as a resilient and dependable legal services firm, providing such services in both a traditional and online, web-based environment. With mastered specialization in areas such as Employment and Labor Law, Intellectual Property (IP) (trademark, copyright, patent), Entertainment Law, and e-Commerce (Supply Chain, Distribution, Fulfillment, Standard Legal & Regulatory), we provide a range of legal services including, but not limited to traditional legal representation (litigation, mediation, arbitration, opinion letters and advisory), non-litigated business legal representation and legal counsel, and unique, online legal services such as smart forms, mobile training, legal marketing and development.

Still, we, here at Miletti Law®, feel obligated to enlighten, educate, and create awareness, free of charge, about how these issues and many others affect our unusually motivated® readers and/or their businesses. Accordingly, in order to achieve this goal, we have committed ourselves to creating authoritative, trustworthy & distinctive content, which looks to not only educate, but also deliver in a manner that only Miletti Law® can. Usually, this content is featured as videos that are posted on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvUryqkkMAJLwrLu2BBt6w and blogs that are published on our website WWW.MILETTILAW.COM. With that, the ball is in your court and you have an effortless obligation to subscribe to the channel and sign up for the Newsletter on the website, which encompasses the best way to ensure that you stay in the loop and feel the positive impact of the knowledge bombs that we drop here!

Here at Miletti Law®, we are bound by the commitment to creating fresh, verifiable, and credible content, which looks to not only educate, but also deliver in a sense that only Miletti Law® can. In that spirit, this blog introduces you to our video titled “Denied Religious Exemption, Were You Wrongfully Terminated” which is accessible through the link provided at the end. As you might know and as we have mentioned in past blogs, Miletti Law® has been very vocal working with nurses and other healthcare professionals in dealing with the COVID-19 vaccine mandates and seeking medical and religious exemptions. Accordingly, by way of backdrop, we found it necessary to make this video as a way of responding to questions and concerns such as how to determine whether you were wrongly terminated after you were ultimately denied the religious exemption. Specifically, we aim to enlighten you about what it really means to be “wrongfully terminated” in light of a denial of your religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccination.

As a human, the general feeling is that you have been wrongly terminated. However, irrespective of whether you deserved it or not, you were wrongly terminated for a specific reason. Indeed, you suffered an adverse employment action after the wrongful termination, but your employer must have their reason for doing so. In most cases, such a wrongful termination must be predicated on a certain protected class or some other reason such as an individual’s religious affiliation. In a nutshell, there are two possible scenarios after you seek an accommodation since you do not want to get vaccinated. Either the hospital (1) fails to accommodate your deeply-held religious beliefs, practices, convictions, or preferences, or (2) discriminates against you because of your deeply-held religious beliefs, practices, convictions, or preferences, which ultimately led to a wrongful termination.

At this point, let us have an overview of each of these scenarios and understand how to go about it.

The failure to accommodate a person’s deeply-held religious beliefs or convictions.

Generally, an employer is required to provide a reasonable accommodation to an employee or applicant’s religious beliefs, practices, or convictions. However, such an accommodation should not impose an undue burden or hardship to the employer’s day-to-day business operations. Please, hit this link https://milettilaw.com/blog/f/definition-of-reasonable-accommodation and learn more about what a reasonable accommodation is, as defined by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Generally speaking, to provide a rationale whether the accommodation being sought should be considered or not, three things must be present, including;

  • Employee must show that they possess a bona fide religious beliefs that conflicts with the employment’s requirements.
  • A notification that the employee requires an accommodation because of their religious beliefs.
  • The employee suffered some kind of adverse effect or injustice for failing to comply with the requirements of the employment due to their religious beliefs or practices (e.g., being unjustly terminated for failure to get vaccinated against you religious beliefs).

Once these things are established, the burden shifts to the employer’s side, who should then defend themselves as to why this happened to their employee. It is critical to note that when you bring forth such a claim, you, as the employee, are not required by the law to demonstrate that you are, indeed, the perfect religious candidate. Simply, you do not have to show anyone that you are perfect devotee of your religion, you just need to show that you have deeply-held convictions or beliefs to that religion and, thus, you deserve a reasonable accommodation. For their case to hold in court, the employer, on their part, has to show either of three things, including, (1) that the employee does not have the alleged deeply-held religious beliefs or convictions, (2) the employee was actually offered a reasonable accommodation, but the employee rejected it or deemed it unreasonable to them or (3) the requested accommodation would have imposed an undue hardship or burden on the employer’s day-to-day business operations. You can read more about what the law regards as an undue hardship or burden, particularly what a “de minis cost” is, by hitting this link https://milettilaw.com/blog/f/what-is-undue-hardship-in-religious-accommodation?blogcategory=Title+VII+of+Civil+Rights+Act.

However, it is crucial to understand that some “reasonable” accommodations are not actually reasonable. For instance, being offered unpaid leave for indeterminate amount of time (no pay, no employment, for an indeterminate period) as an accommodation is out rightly unreasonable and no one should contest against that in court, but, unfortunately, this is the America we live in right now.

Being discriminated against because of deeply-held religious beliefs, practices, convictions, or preferences, which ultimately led to a wrongful termination.

Again, generally speaking, when it comes to discriminatory intent in the context of wrongful termination, you should make sure you certify the following four things before you bring the claim to the court.

  • You had membership in a protected class.
  • You qualified for your existing position.
  • You were actually terminated from your job.
  • Demonstrate and establish circumstances that rise to an inference (not 100% proven) of wrongful termination.

In a nutshell, these are the legally-acceptable basis upon which to go about a claim that you were “wrongfully terminated” in light of a denial of your religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccination. Remember, if you are ready, willing, and able to work, but your employer has brought a condition that makes you unable to do so work anymore, then you are entitled to relief. However, it does not mean that you are entitled to relief because you were simply terminated. If you can establish such a legal basis as the one we have described in this blog, then you need to push. If you are unsure about how to, then do not worry because Miletti Law® has got your back. Your help is only a call away!!

We invite you to view our video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHt1exvo74.

Stay tuned for more legal guidance and counsel. In the interim, reach out to us with questions and/or comments on our website at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.