Kathy Katz, Fired for Refusing the Covid-19 Vaccine, Reinstated and Receives Payment
Los Angeles County Ordered to Pay More than $900,000, and Required to Reinstate Physician’s Assistant Fired for Refusing the Covid-19 Vaccine on Religious Grounds
Its official! Kathy Katz obtained a final decision in her battle to get her job back. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge awarded her in excess of $900,000, and ordered the County to reinstate her within 21 days. Katz, a long term and well liked member of the orthopedics department, was first transferred to a remote work location, and ultimately fired in June, 2023, after the pandemic was over, because she declined the Covid-19 vaccine. Katz was raised Catholic, but attends a non-denominational church near Chatsworth, California. She has strong beliefs about her body being a temple, and takes a holistic approach to her health. She also strongly objected to the vaccines because of their having been developed (or containing) tissue from fetal cell lines derived from aborted babies.
Judge William Fahey ruled that the County’s process of evaluating Katz’ request was “arbitrary and capricious.” I had to look up the definition of “capricious” to make sure I understood its meaning. It is somewhat synonymous with arbitrary, but also means lacking a rational basis, done on a whim or impulse. What did the County do to Katz?
First, when faced with thousands of religious accommodation requests the County recruited the help of a third party provider, Shaw HR Consulting, to assist in setting up a system to process the requests. Shaw was competent to process the requests, but lacked any training or competence in evaluating such requests. So what did Shaw do? It established several categories to sort the complaints into. Those who said their religion was in conflict with the vaccine, but did not mention “fetal tissue” were placed in a category recommended for approval, even if they mentioned “abortion” or said they also had a personal or political reason for not wanting the vaccine. But if someone mentioned “fetal tissue,” these were placed in a category subject to scrutiny. That neither Shaw or the County understood this to be unlawful discrimination is shocking, that is if one can be shocked by bureaucratic incompetence.
Next, the County failed to comply with its own Covid policy. Its written policy said that those who sought exemptions had a right to an interactive process meeting with a union representative present. So did the County actually conduct any such meetings? You guessed it. Not a chance! Instead, the County bogarted all the requests to be reviewed by a very small group from County HR and County counsel’s office. The County refused to permit Departmental HR people to review the requests and meet with employees to see if they were sincere in their objections to the vaccine. But the County HR officials responsible for evaluating religious exemption requests – did they have any relevant training? Not a bit of it. This troubled Judge Fahey. He said so at closing argument.
Ms. Katz submitted her exemption request in October, 2021. She was promptly relocated to a remote location where she continued providing telehealth and scheduling services, and earned praise and good marks in her performance review.
Ms. Katz was sent follow up questions, “gotcha questions” asking if she had ever had any other vaccines or used any one of a list of common medications allegedly developed or tested with fetal cell lines. She answered that she had had a flu shot in 2019, and occasionally took Ibuprofen. On that basis, County HR decided she lacked a sincere religious objection to the vaccine because she should have known that Ibuprofen was linked to fetal cell lines. The County never asked her if she ever took Ibuoprofen knowing of its link to fetal cell lines. No one from the County ever met with Ms. Katz. Her initial request, and follow up request for reconsideration were rejected by bureaucrats who did not know her, and felt competent to decide her fate without even speaking with her.
The denial came in early 2022. During the summer of 2022, the head of nursing demanded that the unvaccinated nurses be returned to active duty, because they were suffering a nursing shortage. No surprise there. The record did not establish whether the County formally approved the nurses’ exemption requests, or just sent them back to work.
In November, Ms. Katz was issued a five day suspension, which according to the collective bargaining agreement, was the first step toward termination. Ms. Katz filed a grievance, which was denied at Step One and Step Two. The Step Two Denial came on March 10th, 2023, and the very same day, Ms. Katz was issued her notice of termination.
Her Union Rep testified that this was unheard of – cutting short the grievance process to terminate someone. Why? Because if Katz had successfully grieved her suspension, she could not have been terminated. But the pandemic was ending, so if the County was going to act, it had to act quickly. The State of California lifted its vaccine mandates for state workers in early April, as did Los Angeles County. The County only retained its mandate for health care workers. But the Federal mandate for health care workers ended in early June, a few days before Katz’ termination.
The court upheld all of Mr. Katz’ legal claims: religious discrimination (Government Code 12940(a)), retaliation, and failure to prevent discrimination. The court was also persuaded by testimony from a nursing colleague who was never disciplined despite having the very same religious beliefs, only grounded in the Muslim rather than Christian faith.
The judge gave the County two golden opportunities to settle the case, both after the trial, and after closing arguments, urging the parties to settle. The County never offered more than $20,000 to settle the case.
Ms. Katz was represented by Manny Starr of Frontier Law, and by Jonathon Cherne and Alan Reinach of the Church State Council. Mr. Cherne delivered both the opening and closing arguments, and handled cross examination of the County’s witnesses. Mr. Reinach presented Ms. Katz’ case in chief, including testimony from Ms. Katz, her husband, Brad Katz, the union rep, and Charles Mahla, economist from Econ One, whose damage analysis was unrebutted by the County. The court accepted Mr. Mahla’s calculations.
On a personal note, Mr. Katz served as assistant principal at the Thousand Oaks High School when my son Eli Reinach attended there. We have been blessed and enriched to know this couple, and honored to represent them.