News Release
For Immediate Release: 10.16.26
Contact: Natalie Konstans, media@firstliberty.org
Direct: 972-941-4454
Washington Firefighters Terminated for Faith Appeal to Ninth Circuit
The Redmond Fire Department denied eight firefighters’ requests for religious accommodations from the COVID-19 vaccine and subsequently terminated them.
San Francisco, CA—First Liberty Institute, Williams & Connolly, and Church State Council filed an opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on behalf of eight Redmond, Washington firefighters who were denied religious accommodations from the COVID-19 vaccine and ultimately fired for their faith. The firefighters are appealing a decision of the Western District of Washington upholding the Redmond Fire Department’s discriminatory treatment.
You can read the opening brief here.
“Denying reasonable religious accommodations without proof of undue hardship ended with the Supreme Court’s 9-0 decision in Groff v DeJoy,” stated Senior Counsel for First Liberty Institute, Cliff Martin. “The government cannot erase a religious accommodation simply because leaders decide there should be ‘consequences for the unvaccinated.’”
Alan Reinach of Church State Council said, “The Redmond Fire Department offered no accommodation and no solution. Even when suitable positions were identified, the department went out of its way to hire vaccinated firefighters, blocking Plaintiffs’ chance for obtaining a new job and displaying unlawful animus towards our clients.”
Eight firefighters working for the Redmond Fire Department in Redmond, Washington, requested a religious accommodation from the Covid-19 vaccination mandate because of their sincerely held religious beliefs. Initially, all firefighters received religious exemptions, but those were soon revoked following an executive order from the mayor, influenced by the City’s fire chief, who disapproved of the religious exemptions. The executive order exclusively applied to firefighters, as the mayor wanted “consequences for the unvaccinated” for “public perception” purposes. It required all firefighters to get vaccinated, but did not pertain to other first responders, such as police officers.
In October 2021, before the mandate went into effect, all but one of the firefighters applied for leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), to cope with the stress of being forced to choose between their faith and their jobs. The firefighter who did not use FMLA was terminated that November. The city and the firefighters’ union negotiated an agreement identifying positions where vaccination would not be required, but instead of offering those jobs to the unvaccinated firefighters, city officials deliberately hid the open positions from the firefighters, told them the jobs were not available, and hired vaccinated firefighters to fill those spots instead.
After exhausting all federal and state medical leave, the remaining firefighters returned to work in the spring of 2022 to find that the City still would not accommodate them—even though it had by then relaxed other Covid-19 precautions.
In the brief, attorneys argue, “The City could have accommodated Plaintiffs in four different ways: (1) asking vaccinated firefighters to swap job responsibilities so that Plaintiffs could serve in non-patient-facing roles; (2) giving Plaintiffs Fire Prevention roles; (3) reassigning Plaintiffs to the positions the City identified as accommodations, rather than awarding those jobs to vaccinated firefighters; or (4) allowing Plaintiffs to continue in their existing roles with masking and testing as COVID precautions…On the law: The district court failed to apply the undue-hardship test correctly.”
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About First Liberty Institute
First Liberty Institute is a non-profit public interest law firm and the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom for all Americans.
To arrange an interview, contact Natalie Konstans at media@firstliberty.org or by calling 972-941-4454.
