BART workers fired due to COVID vaccine mandate to get over $1M each, federal jury decides

ABC7 News
Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:32 UTC

© David Paul Morris / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

A person waits on a platform at a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train station in Oakland, Calif., on Oct. 26, 2020.

A federal jury has sided with fired BART [ed-Bay Area Rapid Transit] workers who sued the agency claiming they lost their jobs over a COVID vaccine mandate.

There are six of them total in the lawsuit and each will receive more than $1 million.

The employees claimed religious exemptions to the vaccine mandate but say they were not accommodated by the transit agency, and subsequently lost their job.

BART did initially grant vaccine exemptions, but the plaintiffs argued they weren't accommodated. An accommodation could have meant that they were able to work from home or get tested regularly for COVID. They argued none of that happened and they lost their jobs.

In total, BART must now pay a combined $7.8 million to all six former employees.

BART is a transit agency that is already between $350 and $400 million in the red, but BART's board of directors did vote eight to one for the vaccine mandate in 2021.

BART has not commented on Wednesday's decision.

Comment: NBC News reports further:

On October 14, 2021, BART issued a policy requiring all employees to be fully vaccinated against Covid as a condition of employment, the suit said.

Between then and February 2022, about 179 employees submitted requests for religious exemptions, and 70 were approved, the suit said. But none of the 70 who received an exemption were granted an accommodation, the suit said.

However, one in three BART employees seeking medical exemptions were granted an accommodation, according to the suit.

The employees who sought religious exemptions followed by an accommodation who ultimately denied the vaccine were either fired, forced to resign or retired, the lawsuit said.