Employment: COVID-19 religious discrimination claims are reinstated

Where two employees pleaded facts making it plausible that their beliefs were an essential part of a religious faith and they connected those beliefs to their refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, the district court erred in dismissing their Title VII claims.

Background

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Humane Society of the United States (like many employers) instituted a company-wide vaccine mandate, requiring their employees to get vaccinated or risk termination. Two of the Society’s remote employees, Katherine Muldoon and Jennifer Finn, requested religious exemptions from the mandate. But the Society denied both requests and eventually fired them.

Muldoon and Finn sued, alleging religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. They also brought claims for disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA. The district court granted the Society’s motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim.

Title VII

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employer can’t “discharge any individual, or otherwise . . . discriminate against any individual . . . because of such individual’s . . . religion.” But to claim such protection, a plaintiff must show her professed belief is (1) sincerely held and (2) religious in nature. The parties dispute only the second prong.

This court recently clarified the requirements to state a Title VII religious discrimination claim in the vaccine mandate context in Barnett v. Inova Health Care Servs., 125 F.4th 465 (4th Cir. 2025). It articulated two requirements for this “religious” prong at the pleading stage in vaccine mandate cases: (1) a person’s beliefs must be an “essential part of a religious faith” and (2) such beliefs must be “plausibly connected with her refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Muldoon asserts that she opposes the use of aborted fetal cell lines to produce the COVID-19 vaccine because of her “Christian upbringing.” And Finn explains that she would “betray[]” her “conscience and faith” if she complied with the mandate, citing Catholic teachings. At the pleading stage, these allegations are enough to show that Muldoon and Finn’s beliefs are each “an essential part of a religious faith that must be given great weight.”

Muldoon expressly links her refusal to “inject a product containing fetal cells or derived from testing involving fetal cells” to her “religious beliefs founded in [her] Christian upbringing that fetuses are individuals and did not consent to the use of their bodies in medical testing or production.” That connection satisfies the second requirement.

Finn connects her belief that her “heart, conscience and faith in God and Jesus prevent [her] from complying with the mandate” to Catholic teachings on the importance of one’s conscience. Because Muldoon and Finn plausibly allege that their beliefs are an essential part of a religious faith and they connect those beliefs to their refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, the district court erred in dismissing their Title VII claims.

ADA

Under the ADA, an employer can’t “make inquiries of an employee as to whether such employee is an individual with a disability or as to the nature or severity of the disability, unless such examination or inquiry is shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity.” Muldoon and Finn say that the Society had no valid business reason to inquire into their vaccination status, especially because they were remote employees. But that argument is fatally flawed: an employer’s inquiry into an employee’s vaccination status isn’t a disability-related inquiry.

Muldoon and Finn also allege that the Society regarded them as disabled because they were unvaccinated and then fired them for that reason. But, once again, being unvaccinated isn’t a physical or mental impairment. It therefore can’t support a “regarded as” claim.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part and remanded.

Finn v. Humane Society of the United States, Case No. 24-1416, Nov. 20, 2025. 4th Cir. (Diaz), from DMD at Baltimore (Russell III). Francis J. Collins for Appellants. Leslie Victoria Maffeo for Appellee. VLW 025-2-420. 11 pp.