Litigation

• Our Plaintiff v. New York-Based Compant was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiff, a longtime health-services professional, alleged that her employer unlawfully terminated her after refusing to provide a legally-required religious accommodation.
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  According to the Complaint, the plaintiff was a valued employee for more than fifteen years when her employer mandated a COVID vaccine. When she sought a religious accommodation—explicitly permitted under the New York State and New York City Human Rights Laws—she alleges the company categorically denied her request without engaging in the legally required interactive process.
  
  Rather than conducting an individualized assessment, the employer allegedly presented the plaintiff with an ultimatum: comply with the medical requirement or accept a demotion, loss of benefits, or termination. The plaintiff maintains that reasonable accommodation was readily available, including assignment to client sites that did not impose the exact requirement, remote or modified duties, or other alternatives routinely recognized under employment law.
  
  The plaintiff sought damages for lost wages, lost benefits, emotional distress, and breach of contractual obligations arising from the employer’s own written accommodation policies. She demanded a jury trial.

• A WIN IN THE NEBRASKA SUPREME COURT! MAFA lawyers Bob Sullivan and Russ Barger represent Creighton University students who were expelled after their religious exemptions for the COVID vaccines were denied and they refused to comply with the school’s mandate. The attorneys filed a lawsuit against the university on behalf of the students. After a district court judge dismissed the case, the attorneys appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court, which reversed the dismissal and stated that two of the students’ claims could move forward.
  • Claim #1: The students alleged in their lawsuit that they had an implied contract with the university in which Creighton offered to educate them if they completed required enrollment forms and paid tuition. This contract was breached when they were expelled for not complying with the vaccine mandate. The court agreed.
  • Claim #2: Creighton was wrong to withhold the students’ transcripts, making it impossible to transfer class credits to another university despite paying tuition and fees. The court also agreed with this claim.
  • Ironically, Creighton now allows religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines, but the
    court ruled that this did not negate the students’ claims. The entire debacle is ludicrous considering that Creighton is a Jesuit school which states on its website that it is “…rooted in the Jesuit, Catholic tradition of respect and care for all.” (1)
  • MAFA lawyer Bob Sullivan said the students are ready to proceed. He said, “The
    students appear certain to continue their fight. Now that the Nebraska Supreme Court has rendered their decision that the students have a valid claim, there will be significant litigation expenses as an institution such as Creighton is highly unlikely to enter into good-faith discussions regarding a resolution. Instead, Creighton is likely to continue to hold to the position that they were right all along and that the students were not harmed in the least. Because of this, we will learn even more about how the University went about making their decisions regarding the vaccine mandate and their ultimate decision to unenroll students and ban them from the campus.
  • “The hope is that things like this will never happen again. However, hope is one of
    tyranny’s most sought-after victims. But for the courage, sacrifices, and determination of these students, hope would be in the crosshairs of those willing to abuse their positions of authority. Such people would do everything possible to crush that hope, in order to control their subjects with despair. Individuals and institutions who hold authority over everyday Americans would only grow emboldened and feel even more free to abuse that authority and power to the extreme detriment of our Nation and the rights and freedoms secured for us by those who have gone before us. it is essential to have hope, and hope we have, but it is also essential to follow through and force tyranny into submission whenever and wherever it rears its grotesque head.”

(1) https://www.creighton.edu/

• Lisa Baumgart, a licensed physical therapist in Massachusetts, was investigated several years ago by the state’s Board of Registration for not enforcing mask mandates in her office during the COVID debacle. The requirement was patently absurd, as Baumgart’s clientele includes elderly people and fragile patients who have trouble breathing even when NOT wearing a mask. The exertion of physical therapy without
  being able to breathe can be dangerous.
• Despite years of pressure from the state, Baumgart bravely drew a line in the sand and refused to admit that she did anything wrong – because she didn’t. COVID restrictions were not laws and were only enforceable through intimidation. She simply used clinical judgment concerning patients in her care. And NOT ONE of those patients complained about her services.
• In October 2025, after numerous communications during which the Board encouraged Baumgart to settle, the Board finally issued a determination; Baumgart erred in not enforcing the mask mandate. Her practice was placed on probation for a year, and she was fined $200. She is required to earn an extra nine continuing education credits. Likely any missteps during this probationary period – real or invented – will result in further discipline and could even involve licensure revocation.
• While it is difficult to determine what goes on in the minds of government employees who have ridiculous amounts of power over citizens, we think that the Board’s failure to issue a finding for the last several years was the fact that they knew that they were on shaky ground. Perhaps members hoped that Baumgart would close her practice, move to a free state, or offer a compromise. She did not. And now, she must move this battle to court, where she is much more likely to get a fair hearing and potentially to nullify the board’s disciplinary action. Cases like this are being tried in court all over the country, and in some cases health professionals have won large damage awards from the government.
• State licensure boards are powerful – too powerful in almost every state. What makes their power particularly egregious is that they are heavily influenced by associations and non-profits that are highly conflicted due to contributions from drug and device makers and other commercial interests.
• Americans want better healthcare from better practitioners who put patients first. Such care is increasingly hard to find as more and more practitioners follow instructions and practice defensively to avoid unwelcome attention from state boards instead of providing the services they want to provide and which their patients seek.
• There is only one way to solve this – aggressive defense of practitioners in court. Boards are answerable to state legislatures, and in most states their funding comes from licensure fees. If expenses due to defending their actions in court exceed their revenues from licensure fees they have to ask the legislature to raise licensure fees to cover their shortfall. In some states, this pressure has resulted in changes in rules and regulations and in investigatory practices.
• The problem is that very few practitioners can afford to defend themselves. This can be solved two ways: more donations from a growing member base, and recruiting practitioners to pay a nominal annual fee ($100 per year) into a defense fund. We calculate that if 5% of both licensed and unlicensed practitioners in the U.S. joined and contributed, we would have over $100 million to invest in aggressive defense and even proactive intervention. It’s time to make this happen!

• Foundation-sponsored lawyer Richard Chambers made new law in Massachusetts in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The case, O’Connell vs Newton Schools, alleged religious discrimination and violation of First Amendment Rights. To file a claim for Violation of Title VII (discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex) against an employer, the individual must first exhaust all administrative remedies and file with the EEOC or MCAD (Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination), and obtain a right to sue letter. Ms. O’Conner did not do this and missed the 300-day deadline.
• But attorney Chambers plead violation of the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause. A Federal Judge agreed and that count can now proceed. Ms. O’Connell will have her day in court.
• Foundation lawyers also represent individuals and their families with claims in the National Vaccine Compensation Program. Attorney Patti Finn just won a case filed with the National Vaccine Compensation Program. Client Lynn Acton was awarded $65,786.83 for neurological injury resulting from a flu vaccine. Her injuries included myoclonus (muscle twitching and spasms), tremors, fasciculations (involuntary twitches and spasms which sometimes accompany multiple sclerosis or ALS), and muscle weakness. She definitely was entitled to compensation.

If you know someone who has been injured by a vaccine, please refer that person to us for evaluation. The claims take time, and the process is arduous, but good lawyers do win cases.

A few more of our other pending cases: 

• Former nurse manager Jessalyn Rose worked at Albany Medical Center for more than a decade, rising to Nurse Manager of Post-Cardio-Thoracic Surgery and receiving consistently strong performance evaluations. After giving birth in 2020, Rose returned to work while breastfeeding.
  • In August 2021, Albany Medical Center announced a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for staff. At that time, the hospital distributed its own medical deferral form, which explicitly listed “pregnant or lactating women” as persons who would be granted a temporary deferral. Rose requested a future date for vaccination. An Albany Med obstetrician reviewed her request and formally approved a temporary deferral, certifying that vaccination should occur after she completed breastfeeding. Days later, Albany Med abruptly reversed course.
  • In a detailed opposition to the hospital’s motion to dismiss, Rose emphasized that she was not seeking to work indefinitely in patient care while unvaccinated. Instead, she sought a short-term, physician-approved accommodation with a clear endpoint—precisely the kind of temporary medical accommodation New York law is designed to protect.
  • A federal judge will now decide whether the case can proceed to discovery and trial, where the factual disputes surrounding Albany Med’s policy reversal, internal medical approvals, and accommodation practices would be tested in full.
• Mark Beaumont served for several years as Director of Weatherization at UCCAC, overseeing energy-efficiency programs and managing major public-funding initiatives. He had a record of responsible performance and was actively working on a significant federal ARPA budget proposal when the dispute arose.
  
  • In early 2022, UCCAC adopted a COVID-19 vaccination and testing policy and invited employees to request religious accommodations. Beaumont, a practicing Christian, promptly submitted a written exemption request grounded in his sincerely held religious beliefs, completed the organization’s required accommodation forms, and proposed to engage in an interactive dialogue, as mandated by the New York State Human Rights Law.
  • Rather than meeting with him in person to discuss potential accommodation, UCCAC insisted on a Zoom interview, despite having permitted other employees to meet in person at the executive offices. Beaumont objected on privacy grounds and repeatedly offered to meet face-to-face on multiple dates. UCCAC declined, placed him on unpaid leave, and ultimately terminated his employment.
  • MAFA attorney Patricia Finn filed a civil-rights lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court Ulster County, alleging that Ulster County Community Action Committee, Inc., unlawfully placed Beaumont on unpaid leave and then terminated his employment after refusing to provide religious accommodation as required under New York law. According to the lawsuit, UCCAC allowed Beaumont to continue working past the compliance deadline when it suited the organization—specifically to complete a critical budget proposal—only to suspend and dismiss him immediately afterward. The complaint alleges this sequence demonstrates arbitrariness and bad faith, rather than a genuine effort to accommodate religious beliefs.
  • Beaumont’s suit asserts claims under New York State Human Rights Law § 296, which prohibit religious discrimination and requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation unless doing so would impose an undue hardship. He alleges UCCAC never identified any specific hardship and failed to engage in the good-faith interactive process the law requires.
  • The action seeks compensatory damages for lost wages and emotional distress, punitive damages to deter future violations, reinstatement, and attorney’s fees. Beaumont has demanded a jury trial. The matter is now pending before the Ulster County Supreme Court.