An EEOC finding sharpens a fired worker's claim against a healthcare giant
A fired medical assistant says her employer waved through other workers' faith exemptions, then refused hers.
Sarah Plath spent more than a decade as a medical assistant at Kaiser Permanente. In a lawsuit filed June 24, 2026, in federal court in Northern California, she alleges the company fired her over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate after brushing off her religious objection.
Plath, a practicing Christian, asked for a religious exemption in August 2021, according to the complaint. The filing says Kaiser gave it a preliminary green light, came back with follow-up questions, then reversed course. The denial, in November 2021, came with a single sentence, the complaint states: the company told her only that "it has been determined that your request does not meet the standards necessary for granting an exemption from obtaining any COVID-19 vaccine." Plath says Kaiser never explained what standard it applied. According to the complaint, she was fired on January 10, 2022.
The heart of the case is comparison. The complaint alleges Kaiser approved religious exemptions for other employees in comparable jobs and offered them alternatives - remote work, masking, symptom screening, regular testing, and social distancing. Plath says she was already testing regularly, with every result negative. The filing claims Kaiser never sat down with her to explore options, the step employment lawyers call the interactive...
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