A federal judge tossed a lawsuit filed by a nurse against Houston Methodist hospital over its requirement that all employees be vaccinated against Covid.
117 employees filed a lawsuit against a Houston-area hospital over its Covid-19 vaccine mandate.
Jennifer Bridges, a registered nurse at the hospital said that doctors are being forced from their practices and ultimately left with no choice but to abandon their patients.
The lawsuit argued the vaccine mandate violates the Nuremberg Code and US statutes that allow Americans to refuse “unapproved” treatments.
The employees sued The Methodist Hospital, the Methodist Hospital System and Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital.
David Bernard, the CEO of Houston Methodist San Jacinto Hospital told employees that they can find a job elsewhere if they refuse the experimental Covid vaccine.
“100% vaccination is more important than your individual freedom. Everyone [sic] of you is replaceable. If you don’t like what your [sic] doing you can leave and we will replace your spot,” Bernard told the employees.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston, a Reagan appointee tossed out the lawsuit on Saturday and blasted Jennifer Bridges.
NBC DFW reported:
In a scathing ruling Saturday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston deemed lead plaintiff Jennifer Bridges’ contention that the vaccines are “experimental and dangerous” to be false and otherwise irrelevant. He also found that her likening the vaccination requirement to the Nazis’ forced medical experimentation on concentration camp captives during the Holocaust to be “reprehensible.”
Hughes also ruled that making vaccinations a condition of employment was not coercion, as Bridges contended.
“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” Hughes concluded.
Jared Woodfill, a Houston lawyer representing Bridges and the other clients, promised an appeal.
“All of my clients continue to be committed to fighting this unjust policy,” Woodfill said in a statement. “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.”
More than 170 Houston Methodist Hospital employees have been suspended for two weeks without pay for refusing the Covid-19 vaccine.