Hearst Communications has asked a Federal District Court judge in Boston to grant a motion for summary judgment that would conclude a legal fight against the owner of broadcast television stations being waged by an individual who, until February 2022, was associated with its WCVB-5 in Boston.
Why? Although the plaintiff charges he suffered religious discrimination for being dismissed for not adhering to Hearst’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement for all employees, Hearst charges that other medication he takes nullifies his entire case.
As RBR+TVBR reported, George Rodrique, who worked at points for WCVB-5 in Boston, the market’s ABC affiliate, as a videographer from 2004 through 2021, was terminated for not getting vaccinated by the due date set for all Hearst employees.
Rodrique accused Hearst and the DUA of religious discrimination and for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, on the grounds that the vaccination is against his beliefs.
Specifically, the complaint explained, “Mr. Rodrique believes that God has given humans natural immunity, and that commercial vaccines created, owned, and marketed by profit-making corporations intrude on God’s sacred place within the temple of the human body.”
In June, Hearst earned a partial win in the case. By August, Rodrique successfully obtained a motion for reconsideration. It came as the judge determined there was an “inadvertent sua sponte dismissal of Mr. Rodrique’s Count IV” against Hearst under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act (MCRA), for failure to exhaust “the requisite administrative process.”
On December 29, Hearst filed a motion it hopes will put an end to the case once and for all. First, it notes that vaccination status is not a “disability” or “perceived disability” as required to bring claims under the ADA and Massachusetts law. As to Rodrique’s religion-based claims under Title VII and Massachusetts law, “courts have rejected such claims where, as here, the record demonstrates beyond any genuine dispute that vaccine opposition stems from concerns regarding the vaccines’ efficacy and potential side effects, not from any bona fide religious belief,” Hearst argues.
Furthermore, Hearst shares that courts have held “that the heightened dangers to health and safety created by accommodating COVID-19 exemption requests are sufficient on their own to establish the ‘undue hardship’ needed to defeat failure-to-accommodate claims.”
However, the key to dismissal of the case perhaps lies in the statements made by Rodrique to Hearst on his original COVID-19 accommodation request. “Up until about two years ago I received flu vaccinations,” he shared, while explaining that this was prior to the “stage of religious and spiritual evolution that has manifested.”
Rodrique was also prescribed medications for a “compromised” liver caused by alcoholism earlier in his life. He had “recently” stopped taking them “because I felt that all of those chemicals were having a deleterious effect on my physical being which, of course, progresses into mental issues as well.”
Then, there are social media “tweets” on the platform now known as “X” that present Hearst the argument that Rodrique, while against the vaccine, cannot use religious exemption statutes to support his personal reservations against the COVID-19 prevention jabs.
But, the biggest revelation comes from Hearst in a “Defendant’s Statement of Undisputed Facts,” in which the following is shared:
Plaintiff’s pharmacy records, discovery responses, and deposition testimony reveal
that he filled, refilled, and paid for prescriptions for several medications, including Losartan (last dispensed on November 3, 2023); Buproprion (last dispensed on November 3, 2023); Amlodipine (last dispensed on May 19, 2023); Rosuvastatin (last dispensed on April 10, 2023); and Montekulast (last dispensed on April 10, 2023).
This is based on an interrogatory response that also revealed that Rodrique admitted that in the year 2023, he also took Omeprazole for acid reflux from time to time.
As Rodrique admitted that he took these medications knowing that they were “manmade,” “owned and made by profit-making corporations,” and “marketed by profit-making
corporations,” his case cannot stand, Hearst concluded.
Now, it is up to the court to decide if that is indeed the case.
