Former Ann Arbor City Employee Who Sued Over City’s COVID Vaccine Mandate Has Case Thrown Out

“Plaintiffs, former City of Ann Arbor (“City”) employees, filed this lawsuit claiming that their employment was terminated in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (‘Title VII) and Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (‘ELCRA’).” 

An employee who did not submit a request for religious exemption from a city’s vaccine mandate did not have a claim under Title VII or Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, according to a ruling from a federal judge in the Eastern District of Michigan, granting the city employer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.

The allegations in the plaintiffs’ amended complaint did not make it plausible that the employee’s religion motivated the city’s decision to fire him, U.S. District Court Judge Linda V. Parker wrote.

“Plaintiffs concede in their pleading that [the employee] did not submit a form requesting a religious exemption from the City’s mandatory vaccination policy …,” the judge explained. “There, in fact, is no basis from which to conclude or even infer that [the employee’s] religion, as opposed to simply his refusal to comply with the vaccination mandate, motivated the city’s termination decision.”

The opinion is Alexa v. City of Ann Arbor (MiLW 02-107397, 10 pages).

Noah S. Hurwitz of Hurwitz Law in Ann Arbor, who represented the employee, said his client is considering whether to appeal the opinion, as the district court’s decision “is inconsistent with recent authority from the same court.”

He also noted that the case remains pending for three other employees, who “indisputably requested religious accommodations and were denied for completely arbitrary reasons.”

Ann Arbor attorney Atleen Kaur of the City Attorney’s Office, who represented the City of Ann Arbor, did not respond to a request for comment.

Vaccine mandate

Four individuals, including Brandon Boggs, were employees of the City of Ann Arbor.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the city implemented a mandatory vaccination requirement on Aug. 26, 2021, for its employees with a deadline of Nov. 19, 2021, to receive the vaccine.

The city permitted employees to request exemptions from the vaccine mandate for religious reasons. The other three individuals submitted “Request for Religious Exemption” forms but were denied exemptions and subsequently terminated.

Boggs did not submit an exemption form and was also fired. He claimed he was explicitly told that he would not be accommodated, that it would not be “enough” to merely state he was Christian, Catholic or Baptist and that whether an exemption would be granted would depend on the employee’s religious denomination.

He decided that submitting an exemption request would be futile.

The four former employees filed suit, alleging that the city was motivated by their religious beliefs in terminating their employment and that accommodating their religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccine would not have imposed an undue hardship on the city.

In response, the city moved to dismiss Boggs’ claims, arguing that he failed to plead facts to show that it was informed of his religious conflict with the vaccination mandate.

Boggs never filed a request for a religious exemption, the city told the court, and his vague allegations about a discussion with an unidentified individual concerning exemptions did not support the city’s knowledge of his religious beliefs.

But Boggs failed to allege that his religion motivated the city’s decision to terminate him, the court found.

“While plaintiffs allege that Boggs was told that he would not be accommodated and that merely identifying one’s religion was not enough to qualify, they do not identify the individual with whom Boggs spoke or provide facts from which the motive of the city’s decisionmaker(s) could be drawn from this conversation,” Parker wrote. “In other words, contrary to plaintiffs’ assertion, this conversation does not ‘require this court to assume that [the city] indeed knew that … Boggs required religious accommodation.’”

In response to the city’s motion, the plaintiffs contended that the city had not presented evidence “that it was completely unaware” of Boggs’ need for a religious exemption.

That argument confused which party shoulders the relevant burden when the court decides a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, Parker said.

“It is the plaintiff’s burden to plead sufficient facts to plausibly support his or her claims,” she pointed out. “And the question on a motion to dismiss or for judgment on the pleadings is whether the plaintiff has met this burden.”

Boggs failed to meet this burden, the judge determined.

Nor was the court persuaded by the plaintiffs’ position that the law does not require Boggs to perform a useless act and that the city’s religious accommodation process was “theater.”

“Perhaps these are correct assertions,” Parker wrote. “Boggs did not have to submit a religious exemption form for his religion to have motivated the city’s termination decision. And the city may in fact have had no intention to grant a religious exemption to any employee. Nevertheless, neither assertion cures the fact that plaintiffs’ pleading is devoid of allegations suggesting that the decision to terminate Boggs was motivated by his religion. In other words, neither contention shows or infers that the decision to terminate Boggs was motivated by his religion.”

Parker acknowledged that the facts alleged plausibly supported a claim that religion motivated the city’s termination decisions with respect to the other three individuals, but found no basis to make the same conclusion with respect to Boggs, citing an Illinois federal court decision from September, Anderson v. United Airlines, Inc.

In that case, 28 unvaccinated employees brought a Title VII claim against United based on its alleged failure to accommodate their religions in connection with the airline’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy.

Only three of the plaintiffs alleged that they applied for a religious accommodation; the Illinois court held that the other 25 did not allege any facts suggesting that the airline could have suspected that they did not comply with the COVID-19 vaccination mandate because of a religious practice.

“For the same reasons, Boggs fails to state a Title VII or ELCRA claim,” Parker concluded.

The judge noted that Boggs’ claims might have survived the motion to dismiss if he had included the statement that his conversation was with “management.” This detail, however, was not alleged and thus did not save Boggs’ claims.