Employment – COVID-19 vaccination suit was wrongly dismissed

Where an emergency room nurse refused a COVID-19 vaccination because of his bona fide religious belief, the district court erred when it dismissed his Title VII failure to accommodate claim.

Background

Valley Health System employed Rod Jenkins as an emergency room nurse from 2019 to 2021. Jenkins alleged that he submitted several exemption requests in which he asserted that he held a religious belief, that his employer’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement was contrary to his religious practice and that he disagreed with fetal cell therapy.

Valley Health denied Jenkins’s accommodation request, without explanation, on Aug. 18, 2021. In November, Jenkins sent another letter requesting accommodation. In response, Valley Health reiterated that Jenkins was not approved for an exemption and that he must be vaccinated by Dec 11, 2021. When he did not comply by that deadline, Valley Health fired him.

Jenkins then filed this lawsuit against Valley Health, alleging failure-to-accommodate and retaliation claims under Title VII. The district court granted Valley Health’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Jenkins appeals only the dismissal of his failure-to-accommodate claim.

Standard

To establish a prima facie case of failure to accommodate under Title VII, a plaintiff must prove “(1) he or she has a bona fide religious belief that conflicts with an employment requirement; (2) he or she informed the employer of this belief; [and] (3) he or she was disciplined for failure to comply with the conflicting employment requirement.”

To evaluate whether Jenkins has sufficiently alleged that he informed his employer of a religious belief that conflicted with the COVID-19 vaccination requirement, this court must consider what Jenkins told Valley Health in his various requests. In doing so, it applies this court’s recently clarified standard as articulated in Barnett v. Inova Health Care Services, 125 F.4th 465 (4th Cir. 2025), and Finn v. Humane Society of the United States, 160 F.4th 92 (4th Cir. 2025), which provide that an employee’s belief must be (1) an “essential part of a religious faith” and (2) “plausibly connected with [a] refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.”

“Under the first requirement, a person must plead that their beliefs are grounded in religious, rather than secular reasons (medical, personal, etc.).” “But we give great weight to a person’s assertion that their ‘belief is an essential part of a religious faith.’” “The second requirement demands slightly more—a link between the identified religious belief and the person’s refusal to get vaccinated.” Thus, the refusal to vaccinate cannot be “solely because of health or safety concerns.” Instead, a plaintiff must “plausibly connect” the refusal to their religious beliefs.

Analysis

Jenkins clearly meets the first requirement. First, he attested that he was “a member of a recognized religious organization, and that the immunizations required by Valley Health are contrary to [his] religious tenets and practices.” Second, he signed a pre-printed statement in Valley Health’s form, stating, “I certify that it is a tenet or practice of my church, religious organization or religious beliefs not to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.” At the pleading stage, those statements are enough to show that Jenkins’s belief was “an essential part of a religious faith that must be given great weight.”

Drawing reasonable inferences in Jenkins’s favor, he also meets the second requirement. Jenkins plausibly connected his vaccine refusal to his religious belief by writing, “I do not agree in fetal cells therapy.” An objection to the use of vaccines that are believed to be tested on or created using aborted fetal cells is a common religious objection to the COVID-19 vaccine. Because Jenkins voiced a common religious objection to vaccination within a document that identified itself as a religious accommodation request, Jenkins’s allegations are sufficient at this stage of litigation.

To be sure, Jenkins also included other statements that did not plausibly connect his vaccine refusal to a religious belief. But an employee “may object to an employer’s vaccine mandate on both religious and non-religious grounds[.]”

Reversed.

Jackson v. Valley Health System, Case No. 24-1708, March 31, 2026. 4th Cir. (Wynn), from WDVA at Harrisonburg (Dillon). E. Scott Lloyd for Appellant. Kimberly W. Daniel and Jonathan M. Sumrell for Appellee. VLW 026-2-115. 9 pp.

Full-Text Opinion

VLW 026-2-115
Virginia Lawyers Weekly