ALLENTOWN, PA (March 30, 2023) – Mansour Law, LLC, a plaintiffs’ employment law firm in Allentown, PA, filed a federal class action lawsuit today against St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN), one of Pennsylvania’s largest health networks. The lawsuit claims that, for the past 15 months, SLUHN has violated federal and state anti-discrimination laws by charging only employees with religious exemptions from its COVID-19 vaccine mandate an extra $1,100.00 per year for their group medical insurance.

The lead plaintiff, Jessica Jennings, is one of about 500 SLUHN employees who received a religious exemption from the network’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. In October 2021, SLUHN instituted a policy supposedly increasing every employee's group health insurance premium by $1,100.00 starting in January 2022. But under this policy, all vaccinated employees and unvaccinated employees with medical exemptions or deferrals from SLUHN’s vaccine mandate received a $1,100.00 “premium discount” to offset the increase entirely. However, unvaccinated employees with religious exemptions from the mandate received no discount.

Since January 2022, only Ms. Jennings and her colleagues with religious exemptions have been forced to pay an extra $1,100.00 per year ($42.31 per bi-weekly pay period) over their 2021 health insurance rate while every other employee’s premium has stayed the same. The group plan is sponsored and funded entirely by SLUHN, and the plaintiffs claim that the network...

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