Jury awards $12M to woman fired for refusing COVID vax. Hundreds of similar suits pending.
A longtime employee of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan who was fired after refusing for religious reasons to get the COVID-19 vaccine has been awarded more than $12 million by a federal jury.
The jury in Detroit returned the verdict Friday afternoon, finding that Blue Cross discriminated against Lisa Domski, of Wyandotte, who is Catholic, by denying her an exemption to its companywide vaccine mandate, an exemption she had sought based on her "sincerely held religious belief."
Denying her that exemption, known as an accommodation, was a violation of federal and state law, the jury found. They awarded Domski a total of $12.69 million, or $315,000 for back pay, $1.375 million for forgone future wages, $1 million for noneconomic damages and $10 million in punitive damages
Her attorney, Jon Marko of Marko Law in Detroit, said Domski's lawsuit against Blue Cross was the first of its kind to go to trial in Michigan involving an employer denying a religious accommodation to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
In a similar case last month in San Franciso, a federal jury awarded more than $1 million each to six Bay Area Rapid Transit agency workers who also didn't get the vaccine for religious reasons.
Will the verdict stand?