Mercy Health St. Mary’s, a Grand Rapids hospital and member of the Trinity Health system, violated federal law when it failed to provide a religious accommodation to an applicant and declined to hire him because of his religious beliefs, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today. Mercy Health has approximately 800 hospital beds in its five hospital campuses located in Grand Rapids, Muskegon, and Lakeshore, Michigan. According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Mercy Health St. Mary’s violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by rescinding a job offer to an applicant who, for religious reasons, refused to receive a flu vaccine. Under Mercy Health’s influenza policy, employees are required to get a flu shot on an annual basis unless granted an exemption. While the applicant’s conditional job offer was pending, he applied for an exemption to the flu shot requirement based on his religious beliefs. Mercy Health arbitrarily denied his request and rescinded the job offer, without specifying to the applicant why or how his request for an exemption was deficient, the EEOC said.
