In Petersen v. Snohomish Regional Fire and Rescue, (9th Cir., Sept. 2, 2025), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected claims by eight firefighters that the Snohomish fire department violated Title VII and Washington state law by refusing to accommodate their requests for religious exemptions from the state's Covid vaccine mandate for all healthcare providers. The court said in part:
SRFR has pointed to several substantial costs of accommodating Plaintiff’s requested vaccine exemption— the health and safety of its own firefighters and the public, the large number of firefighters seeking accommodations, the risk to its operations and the cost of widespread absences, the potential loss of a lucrative contract with DOC, and the risk of additional liability. SRFR also provided unrebutted medical evidence that showed the inadequacy of Plaintiffs’ proposed accommodation. All of this amounts to a showing that SRFR could not reasonably have accommodated Plaintiffs without undue hardship in October 2021....
We cannot judge SRFR by the responses taken by other fire departments.... Nor can we judge SRFR with the clarity of hindsight or the benefit of post-pandemic debates over what measured responses frontline employers should have taken. We must consider the costs faced by SRFR in October 2021, not today.... [A]t the time the Governor issued the Proclamation, “COVID-19 cases were spiking.... The pandemic forced the State of Washington to make decisions quickly and with limited information. In so doing, SRFR relied on the scientific evidence and COVID data then available and acted in the best interests of the community....
