EEOC Sues Mercy Health St. Mary’s for Religious Discrimination

Mercy Health St. Mary’s, a hospital in Grand Rapids and member of the Trinity Health System, is being sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for violating federal law. The lawsuit claims that the hospital failed to provide a religious accommodation to an applicant and declined to hire him because of his religious beliefs.

According to the EEOC, Mercy Health violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it rescinded a job offer to an applicant who refused to receive a flu vaccine for religious reasons. While the applicant’s job offer was pending, he applied for an exemption to the flu shot requirement based on his religious beliefs. Mercy Health denied his request and rescinded the job offer, without specifying why or how his request for an exemption was deficient.

This alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the EEOC is seeking monetary relief for the applicant and an injunction prohibiting the hospital from engaging in this type of conduct in the future.

“Instead of rejecting the applicant’s religious accommodation request outright, Mercy Health should have followed up with him if it had questions,” said Dale Price, senior trial attorney in the EEOC’s Detroit Field Office. “If it had questions, Mercy Health could have spoken with this individual before making a decision to determine the contours of his religious beliefs, rather than prematurely determining that his beliefs were not genuine.”

This case highlights the importance of providing religious accommodations in the workplace. Employers must take reasonable steps to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. This means that employers must make a good faith effort to find a reasonable accommodation that will allow the employee to practice his or her religion.