St. Luke’s University University Health Network discriminated against employees who received a religious exemption from its COVID-19 vaccination program by charging them more for health insurance than their colleagues, a federal class action lawsuit alleges.
The suit, filed Thursday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, says lead plaintiff Jessica Jennings is one of about 500 employees who received a religious exemption from the network’s mandate and had to pay $1,100 more for insurance per year than other employees.
St. Luke’s could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
According to the suit, filed by Mansour Law of Allentown, the network instituted a policy in October 2021 that increased every employee’s health insurance premium by $1,100 starting in January 2022.
Under the policy, the suit claims, vaccinated employees and unvaccinated employees with medical exemptions or other deferrals from the COVID mandate vaccine received a $1,100 “premium discount” to offset the increase. Yet unvaccinated employees with religious exemptions from the mandate received no discount, the suit alleges.
Since January 2022, only Jennings and her colleagues with religious exemptions have been forced to pay extra, while other employees’ premiums have stayed the same, the suit says.
The health plan is sponsored and funded by St. Luke’s and the plaintiffs claim that the network has deliberately increased their premiums to pressure them into getting vaccinated, despite their religious beliefs.
“In our view, this case is pretty straightforward,” attorney William Mansour said in a news release. “St. Luke’s has forced my client and roughly 500 of her colleagues to pay more for their group health insurance solely because their religious beliefs interfere with its ambitious vaccination campaign.
St. Luke’s “essentially gave my client and her colleagues a false choice: either pay more for your health coverage during a period of record inflation or violate your sincere religious beliefs and get vaccinated,” Mansour said. “We don’t think St. Luke’s can legally do that, and we’re going to find out why it did.”
Jennings is suing for violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act. The suit seeks to halt the network’s enforcement of the discount policy and obtain restitution for affected employees, plus interest, compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees, costs, and “other appropriate relief.”