Disney Faces Yet More Legal Trouble As ‘General Hospital’ Vaccine Mandate Discrimination Lawsuit Ordered To Trial
Spencer Baculi
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In adding to Disney’s ever growing slate of legal troubles, a Los Angeles Judge has ordered that a discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuit filed against their broadcast television network ABC – and more specifically its enforcement of its COVID-19 vaccine mandates – by two former General Hospital crew members must officially go trial.
First filed in June 2022 by the father-son duo of James and Timothy James Wahl, the lawsuit alleges that after working on the long-running soap opera for 14 and 10 years respectively, the pair were unceremoniously fired in 2021 after refusing to comply with the network’s aforementioned mandate based on their religious beliefs.
“Plaintiffs requested a religious exemption to the Covid Vaccine Mandate,” reads the original complaint. “Although
ABC said it would grant exemptions for sincerely held religious objections to the Covid-19 shots, it refused to accept Plaintiffs’ request. It denied their requests without explanation, one week after they requested them.”
“These actions were unlawful,” it continues. “ABC does not have the authority to force a medical treatment on its employees against their will. Even if it did, it must offer religious exemptions to anybody who requests one. It cannot discriminate among religions and cannot second-guess the sincerity of one’s religious beliefs without an objective basis for doing so. It did not have one here. ABC’s actions constitute religious discrimination and violate Plaintiffs’ rights under state law.”
Suing the Disney-owned subsidiary on the grounds that they violated the plantiffs’ right to privacy and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act – specifically the clauses which forbid the firing of an individual “because of a conflict between the person’s religious belief or observance”, because of their disability (a label under which the pair categorize their unvaccinated status), or in service of any sort of retaliation – as well as the state’s general protections against wrongful termination, the Wahl’s are ultimately seeking relief by way of compensatory damages, punitive damages, a covering of their attorney’s fees, and a declaration that by the courts that the network’s mandates are unconstitutional.
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And though ABC justified their decision on the grounds that they were “unable to conclude that you are prevented from receiving the Covid-19 vaccine due to a sincerely-held religious belief, practice, or observance,” LA Judge Superior Court Judge Stephen Goorvitch has rejected this argument and chosen to hand the matter off to a jury of the Wahls’ peers.
“Because this necessarily involves a credibility determination, it is difficult to grant summary adjudication of this issue,” asserted Judge Goorvitch in a February 20th order. “While Defendant’s counsel identifies seeming inconsistencies, Plaintiffs raise sufficient facts to give rise to a triable issue, viz., their explanations of their religious beliefs. The jury, not the judge, should determine whether Plaintiffs were genuine in their beliefs, given the disputed facts and the necessity of making credibility determinations.”
However, despite the Judge ruling in Wahls’ overall favor, it should be noted that he did acquiesce to Disney’s request to dismiss the plantiff’s charge that the network’s decision had invaded their privacy.
Commenting on the development to Deadline, the Wahls’ attorney, Scott Street, declared “As many people move beyond the pandemic, this ruling should serve as a reminder of the thousands of people who lost their careers because they asserted their rights and stood up to their employers’ efforts to make them violate their conscience.”
“The pandemic won’t be over until every corporation that violated its employees’ rights has been held accountable,” said Street, who notably also represented General Hospital star Ingo Rademacher in his own-and-eventually-unsuccessful anti-vavvine mandate lawsuit. “We look forward to presenting this case to a jury soon.”
As of writing, ABC has yet to offer an official comment on Judge Goorvitch’s ruling.
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