In
Valent v. Board of Review, Department of Labor, (NJ App., June 5, 2014), the New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division held that a nurse employed by a hospital was entitled to unemployment compensation after she was fired for refusing to obtain a flu vaccination as required by the hospital's policy. The hospital policy allowed exemptions for religious or medical reasons, however here the nurse's objections were based on secular non-medical concerns. The court wrote in part:
By exempting employees who can produce religion-based documentation, the employer's flu vaccination policy is clearly not exclusively driven by health-related concerns. The Board cannot therefore accept the policy as a proper basis to find appellant committed an act of insubordination of sufficient magnitude to render her disqualified for unemployment compensation benefits under N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(b)....
The religion exemption merely discriminates against an employee's right to refuse to be vaccinated based only on purely secular reasons. Our Supreme Court has clearly cautioned that "[g]overnment may not, under the First Amendment, prefer one religion over another or religion over non-religion but must remain neutral on both scores.".... Under these circumstances, by denying appellant's application to receive unemployment benefits based only on her unwillingness to submit to the employer's religion-based policy, the Board violated appellant's rights under the First Amendment.
AP reports on the decision.
