Relying on recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit precedent, a federal judge in Missouri is allowing an employee’s religious discrimination suit to continue against her former employer, finding it couldn’t conclude as a matter of law that the employee’s claimed religious objections to COVID-19 protocols were not based on sincerely held religious beliefs.
In a Sept. 19 opinion, U.S. District Judge Catherine D. Perry dismissed the defendant, American Association of Orthodontists’ summary judgment motion in a religious discrimination claim filed by the plaintiff, Katherine Maria Pinners, concluding she sufficiently established she had a known religious belief and suffered an adverse employment action because this belief conflicted with her employer’s requirement of wearing a mask or getting vaccinated.