The lawyer for 117 Houston Methodist Hospital workers who sued the hospital for its necessary vaccination coverage has vowed to file an enchantment after a federal choose dismissed the lawsuit on Saturday.
More than 170 workers have refused to get the necessary vaccination by the hospital’s deadline on June 7, and have been suspended for the following 14 days with out pay. If the workers don’t adjust to the vaccination mandate, they are going to be fired.
Abiout 117 workers challenged the mandate, and sued the hospital. U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes threw out the case on Saturday, citing it’s inside the hospital’s proper to require its workers to obtain vaccines.
The workers tried to file for wrongful termination, however Texas regulation solely protects workers “for refusing to commit an act carrying criminal penalties to the worker.”
“Receiving a COVID-19 vaccination is not an illegal act, and it carries no criminal penalties. [The employees are] refusing to accept inoculation that, in the hospital’s judgement, will make it safer for their workers and the patients in Methodist’s care,” Hughes mentioned within the dismissal, KPRC reported.
Jared Woodfill, a lawyer for the Houston Methodist workers, launched a press release saying the workers would enchantment to the United States Court of Appeals, and could be looking for a ruling from the Texas Supreme Court in an identical case.
“What is shocking is that many of my clients were on the front line treating Covid positive patients at Texas Methodist Hospital during the height of the pandemic. As a result, many of them contracted COVID-19. As a thank you for their service and sacrifice, Methodist Hospital awards them a pink slip and sentences them to bankruptcy,” Woodfill mentioned within the assertion.
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During the case, Woodfill and the plaintiffs had argued the vaccinations have been neither secure nor absolutely authorised, evaluating the administration of the vaccines to workers as appearing as “human guinea pigs.”
“This is just one battle in a larger war to protect the rights of employees to be free from being forced to participate in a vaccine trial as a condition for employment. Employment should not be conditioned upon whether you will agree to serve as a human guinea pig,” Woodfill mentioned.
The declare was dismissed by Hughes, saying the hospital had not been authorised to check COVID-19 vaccines on its workers in a scientific trial. The declare that the vaccines have been unsafe was equally dismissed.
Houston Methodist wrote in a press release: “With more than 300 million doses administered in the United States alone, the vaccines have proven to be extremely safe. The number of both positive cases and hospitalizations continues to drop around the country, proving that the vaccines are working in keeping our community protected.”
The dismissal resulted in a ruling that “the plaintiffs will take nothing from Houston Methodist Hospital and Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital,” though Woodfill nonetheless plans to proceed interesting the case, saying all the workers “continue to be committed to fighting this unjust policy.”
“This legal battle has only just begun,” Woodfill mentioned. “Ultimately, I believe Methodist Hospital will be held accountable for its conduct. Sometimes the wheels of justice move slower than we like.”
Newsweek reached out to Houston Methodist Hospital for remark.