“Title VII serves as a bulwark to protect the rights of conscience.”
Refusing to disturb a jury verdict awarding $7,824,580 to six former BART employees for the rapid transit system’s failure to accommodate their sincere religious objections to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the Ninth Circuit found reasonable a jury’s conclusion that the employees carried their burden under Title VII and FEHA and BART would not have suffered an undue hardship. Judge Nelson, who authored the opinion, also concurred separately to explain why the district court’s analysis on the employees’ free exercise claims was troubling (Lewis-Williams v. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, No. 25-618 (9th Cir. Sept. 11, 2026)).
When the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) imposed a COVID-19 vaccination mandate in October 2021, it determined that of those who applied for a religious exemption, 70 qualified for a potential accommodation. It concluded, however, that it could not accommodate any of them without suffering an undue hardship and gave them an ultimatum to either become vaccinated or lose their job. Almost half of them chose the vaccine and 37 others resigned, retired, or were fired.
Lawsuit. In 2023, 35 former BART employees who had lost their jobs because of the mandate sued BART for failure to provide religious accommodation in violation of Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) as well as deprivation of their right to the free exercise...
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division have launched a six-month Healthcare False Claims Act Self-Disclosure Pilot ...