The Minnesota Court of Appeals issued several decisions on June 12 — one precedential and the others nonprecedential — regarding employees who applied for, and were denied, religious exemptions from complying with their companies’ COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
In the precedential case, the court determined that an unemployment law judge (ULJ) did not err in determining that the employee’s refusal to follow company policy constituted disqualifying employment misconduct. However, the court did side with two employees denied benefits.
The employees in these cases worked at large companies such as Honeywell, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Berkley Risk Administrators Co., and AstraZeneca. All of them had policies in place requiring employees to receive the vaccine or otherwise get an exemption. One of those employees, Tina Goede, received the precedential ruling.
Goede was employed by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals as an account sales manager. As part of her job duties, Goede met with customers in-person at hospitals and clinics. Many of those customers required proof of COVID-19 vaccination in order to enter. Additionally, AstraZeneca had a policy that employees needed to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine unless they had a religious or medical exemption.
A Catholic, Goede maintained that she would not take the COVID-19 vaccine on behalf of her religious beliefs. However, Goede’s exemption was denied. On April 29, 2022, Goede was terminated from her position for failure to comply...
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