A U.S. judge approved a multimillion-dollar settlement on Dec. 19 for workers who were fired by an Illinois health care system for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
About 500 workers who were terminated or, after seeing their exemption requests denied, got a COVID-19 vaccine, will receive compensation as part of the $10.3 million settlement, a preliminary version of which was first announced in July.
U.S. District Judge John Kness, a Trump appointee overseeing the lawsuit brought by the workers, issued verbal approval for the settlement during a hearing, lawyers for Liberty Counsel and NorthShore University Healthsystem said. Kness plans to release a written judgment in the next week.
In a brief statement emailed to The Epoch Times after Kness’s approval, NorthShore wrote, “We are pleased with the Court’s approval of a supportive resolution to this matter and continue to prioritize the health and safety of our patients and team members.”
Harry Mihet, vice president of legal affairs for Liberty Counsel, said in a statement that the group was “pleased to finally get the court’s final approval of this classwide settlement for these health care workers who were unlawfully discriminated against and denied religious exemptions from the COVID shot mandate.”
“This case should set a precedent for other employers who have violated the law by denying religious exemptions for their employees,” he said.
Liberty Counsel, a legal group that brings cases of alleged religious discrimination, was representing the 13 named plaintiffs in the case. The group successfully won class certification for all workers who were denied religious exemptions, a group that was initially believed to be 499 former and current workers but swelled after the preliminary settlement agreement to at least 519.
As of Dec. 12, 493 class members had submitted claims for a piece of the settlement.
Each worker who was fired stands to receive $24,225. Each worker who remained at the company stands to receive $3,725.
The named plaintiffs are in line to receive an extra $20,000. Those payments, described as service awards, will provide compensation for the plaintiffs helping advise on court filings, gathering documents, and serving as lead plaintiffs “in a sensitive case involving personal health choices and religious beliefs over a matter of intense public debate, even when it was uncertain whether they would have to disclose their identities to the public,” according to a recent filing.
Three workers objected to the settlement, but both parties urged the judge to disregard the objections, which were largely based on pay the trio felt they were owed after being fired.
Marzena Novak, one of the objectors, said her actual losses from being fired and losing pay approached $140,000.
“Although the estimated $25,000 is helpful and will be welcomed, it doesn’t come close to the actual losses suffered by those they treated so poorly,” Novak wrote.
This is a start but lawsuits need to be launched for ALL People forced to have vaccine and EVERYONE coerced into getting it, religious exemption or not.
Of course Pfizer with their free advertising and the fact their ads are not required to list adverse affects, will never be touched as long as people GO ALONG. Biden, Obama, Fauci, the MSM, the Unions and The Entire Globalist Kabal in this country must be Taken down . For punishment how about imprisonment like the J6 accused and injections of their covid vax poison every week!
The democrat party fires many tens of thousands of workers who are/were there to help us and protect us because they had real concerns over a potion that is/was largely untested to any real extent. All the while that same party, led by possibly one of the most genuinely stupid human beings to have ever infested the Oval Office along with his cabal of mongrels in the House and Senate wipe out our southern border and allow an unvetted and unvaccinated tsunami of people from all over the globe, along with a probable healthy sampling of terrorists and thugs, flood our streets and health care facilities While Pelosi, that great Catholic example, calls them God’s children. They may very well be but I’ll bet that not a single one of them without a lawn mower or leaf blower has ever darkened her gated property. Weirdo’s with dirty underwear and hammers, no problem, children of God?. Go to Detroit with your own kind.
Millions and millions of massive lawsuits need to be paid by the corrupt demonic money hungry Wall Street Demons of the pharmaceutical Industries and New World Order Antichrist working hand in hand with a genocidal agenda corrupted Democrat
N.W.O Communist Party of euthanasia lab created viruses vaccines and boosters to reduce population on all others but themselves and their demonic government corrupted friends and families
Seems to me the Judge is a little Stingy. The settlement should BE much higher. Those people could have been out of work a year or more, plus the emotional distress with Bills, mortgages, etc.