Birmingham, Ala. – Today (November 12, 2021), the Alabama Center for Law and Liberty (“ACLL”), joined by John Eastman, a founding partner with Constitutional Counsel Group, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of United Launch Alliance’s employees due to their company’s denials of religious and medical exemptions.
On August 25, 2021, United Launch Alliance, a defense contractor based in Colorado with a facility in Decatur, Alabama, announced that it would require mandatory vaccinations for its employees. Initially, ULA allowed its employees to apply for religious and medical exemptions. All five of ACLL’s plaintiffs filed for religious exemptions, and one of them filed for a medical exemption. All of their requests were denied, reasoning, among other things, that the company had received too many requests for religious accommodations. All five plaintiffs filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has not yet made a decision as to their claims
“Federal law allows these employees to seek temporary relief in the courts while the EEOC is deciding what to do,” said Matt Clark, President of the Alabama Center for Law and Liberty. “One of our plaintiffs has two daughters with congenital heart defects. Losing his job would result in loss of health insurance, which would jeopardize his daughters’ chances of getting the medical care they need,” Clark added. “Another is not far from retirement and doubts that she can get hired at another company at her age. In all cases, though, immediate relief is needed to protect our clients from irreparable harm,” Clark concluded.
The suit claims that federal and state law bar United Launch Alliance from firing their employees if they have religious or proper medical objections. “The law protects an employees’ rights to free exercise of religion and to refuse medical treatment that could harm them,” Clark said. “Regardless of whether one is for or against the vaccines, we should all be able to agree that a person can refuse medical treatment that violates their religious beliefs or puts their health in jeopardy.”
ACLL is a conservative nonprofit legal organization based in Birmingham, Alabama, and it is the litigation arm of the Alabama Policy Institute. For more information, visit ACLL’s website at alabamalawandliberty.org.
