A federal court has dropped the hammer on a Michigan insurance company for firing an employee who refused to be injected with a Covid “vaccine.”
Lisa Domski was awarded almost $13 million in compensation from her former employer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
Domski, a Catholic, had refused to take the “vaccine” for religious reasons.
She had worked at the insurance company for 38 years as an IT specialist until she was fired for standing up for her rights.
Domski was awarded the massive payout after a federal jury in Detroit ruled in favor of her religious discrimination case.
She argued that the company denied her request for an exemption from its 2021 Covid vaccine policy.
The company fired her for refusing the injection, despite her insistence that it conflicted with her Catholic faith.
Domski’s lawyer Jon Marko revealed that she had worked remotely during the pandemic and was on a hybrid arrangement before the Covid outbreak.
Marko noted that his client’s remote work arrangement should have excluded her from the vaccine policy as she posed no risk to others.
In a statement, Marko asserted:
“This was a woman who was working from home in her basement office who wasn’t a threat to anybody and was completely fulfilling all of her job obligations for 38 years.”
After the policy was implemented, Domski submitted a written statement to her employer detailing her religious beliefs.
She attached the contact information of her priest and parish to confirm the information.
However, Marko revealed that the insurer never followed up.
Instead, the company denied her accommodation request and threatened to terminate her if she didn’t comply with the vaccine mandate, he said.
Domski refused and was subsequently fired.
“They made up their minds that they were going to discriminate against people who had sincerely held religious beliefs,” Marko said.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan introduced its Covid “vaccine” policy in October 2021.
Under the policy, all employees were mandated to be fully vaccinated or obtain religious or medical accommodation.
Those who refused to take the experimental injections faced losing their jobs.
Court filings reviewed by Newsweek show the insurer questioned whether Domski was reluctant to get the vaccine over a sincere religious conflict.
Marko said the insurer claimed in court to be unaware of her Catholic faith at the time of her firing.
The company claimed ignorance despite Domski’s written statement with contact information for her church.
Domski was awarded $10 million in punitive damages against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
She also received an additional $1.7 million in lost wages and $1 million in noneconomic damages.
In a statement, the company said it is “disappointed in the verdict.”
However, the company still defends its vaccine policy.
The statement from the insurer reads:
“Throughout the pandemic, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, together with its employees, worked to promote the health and safety of our colleagues, stakeholders, and communities.
“As part of that shared work, in October 2021, Blue Cross, and its subsidiaries, enacted a vaccine policy requiring all of its employees to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or obtain a religious or medical accommodation.
“In implementing the vaccine policy, Blue Cross designed an accommodation process that complied with state and federal law and respected the sincerely held religious beliefs of its employees.
“While Blue Cross respects the jury process and thanks the individual jurors for their service, we are disappointed in the verdict.”
The company said it is “reviewing its legal options and will determine its path forward in the coming days.”
The payout comes months after Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee paid a woman nearly $700,000 in a settlement after she was similarly fired for refusing to comply with its Covid “vaccine” requirement.
The Tennessee federal jury found in July that Tanja Benton “proved by a preponderance of the evidence” that her decision to refuse the vaccine was based on a “sincerely held religious belief.”
Benton also worked on a mostly remote basis before the pandemic.
Marko said he is representing 170 others in separate wrongful termination cases who are taking similar action against Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan over the 2021 vaccine mandate.
The trials are set to begin in the new year.
