Posted on 06/02/2006 3:19:04 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
MADISON, WI (AP) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. acted appropriately by firing a Catholic pharmacist who refused to interact with patients seeking birth control prescriptions, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge John Shabaz dismissed a lawsuit brought by Neil Noesen, who claimed he was fired last summer at a Wal-Mart store in Onalaska, WI out of religious discrimination. The lawsuit also named Medical Staffing Network, a staffing agency that placed Noesen at the store as a temporary pharmacist.
Shabaz said Wal-Mart and Medical Staffing Network accommodated Noesen's religious opposition to contraception by having other pharmacists fill prescriptions. But he said Noesen went too far by putting customers who called about birth control on hold indefinitely and refusing to get service for those who showed up in person without notifying other pharmacists.
Noesen's firing was justified because he was disruptive and failed to meet Wal-Mart's expectations, the judge wrote in his 12-page ruling.
Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said the company was pleased with the ruling.
"Under the circumstances, this is about the best possible solution you could ask for," he said. "These cases are rare but when they do happen we are careful to make accommodations. We also have a responsibility to customers to ensure that their prescriptions are filled."
Stephanie Adler, an Orlando lawyer who represented Medical Staffing Network, said Shabaz's ruling was among the first in the country dealing with religious accommodations for pharmacists.
"It demonstrates there has to be a balance between accommodating someone's religious beliefs while at the same time providing a service and allowing people access to medical care," Adler said. "Noesen believes that his personal beliefs are more important than a patient's right to have access to legally prescribed medication."
The state Pharmacy Examining Board sanctioned Noesen last year after he refused to fill a contraceptive prescription or transfer it to another pharmacy while he was a temporary pharmacist at a Menomonie Kmart in 2002. The board reprimanded him and forced him to attend ethics classes, saying he could not stand in the way of the woman's care.
The case prompted Republican lawmakers to introduce a bill prohibiting state regulators from punishing pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control but the plan failed to win approval in either chamber.
Adler said the staffing agency was aware of his religious beliefs when he was hired and signed an agreement allowing him to decline to fill birth control prescriptions or answer inquiries about them. But she said he became a disruption when he repeatedly failed to find other pharmacists to help the patients after just five days on the job.
Noesen, of St. Paul, Minn., argued the agreement he signed allowed him to simply walk away from them and that his boss was pressuring him to help customers seeking birth control.
When Wal-Mart asked him to leave the store, he refused and was eventually dragged out in a wheelchair by police in Onalaska, a city of 15,000 near La Crosse in western Wisconsin, according to the judge's ruling. Last month, he was convicted of resisting arrest but acquitted on a disorderly conduct charge stemming from that incident.
Noesen, 32, represented himself in the federal lawsuit filed earlier this year. There was no phone listing available for him in the St. Paul area.
Noesen's license to practice in Wisconsin expired Wednesday, according to the Department of Regulation and Licensing. He has so far failed to provide proof that he took the ethics classes or pay back the $20,767 cost of the disciplinary action against him, said Steve Gloe, general counsel of the agency. His license cannot be renewed until he pays the costs.
Looks like he was fired because he was rude to customers.
FWIF...Judge is Reagan appointee.
Federal government shouldn't be involved in requiring a prescription for BC in the first place.
If you don't do the job, you don't get paid.
Man, they are really getting short of pharmacists out there, if they hired this guy with those conditions in the first place. (And they are. Not a bad profession, but I think it's a five-year program).
If he wanted to refuse BC customers he should fight that battle in a pharmacy he owns not as an employee of someone else.
I do, however, think the state board discriminated against him on the basis of his religion. The state has no business ordering him to take "ethics" classes.
"he said Noesen went too far by putting customers who called about birth control on hold indefinitely and refusing to get service for those who showed up in person without notifying other pharmacists."
In my opinion the firing was perfectly legitimate... Nobody has the right to impose his religious convictions on others!
I don't like Wal-Mart much these days but it does appear they tried to accomodate him.
Okay, show me the balance? Sounds like balance is provide service and leave religion at home. Of course if the guy was a muskie I'm sure the outcome would have been different.
I felt sorry for the guy until all the details came out. Until today, I didn't know the fact that he was a Temp.
I didn't know they had to drag him from the store when he was told to leave.
I didn't know he would leave people on hold and not turn them over to others for assistance.
I didn't know he had only worked there for FIVE DAYS, LOL!
Sounds like a control freak above all else.
Oh boy. What a Napoleonic nutcase.
Looks like this will head to the Supreme Court. A ruling in WA state went the other way.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/5782404p-5168702c.html
I hope y'alls conservative philosophy influences them more than religious philosophy.
This is the kind of response that qualifies as trolling. And for your information, we Freepers are quite capable of espousing and defending our conservative and religious principles all at the same time. I applaud the guy's refusal to deal in death, and I also support and applaud Wal Mart's efforts to accomodate his religious beliefs. They did more than they had to in my opinion and were correct in firing an employee who refused to be courteous or helpful to their customers.
Did you even read the article? No sensible person could disagree that it was reasonable for Wal-Mart to fire him.
Sorry. How I came to the conclusion that I did was a mistake. It's too bad there isn't an option to go back and remove comments such as mine. But I know why there isn't so I will just have to suck it up on this one.
I at times wish the same; some message boards allow it, but I have to think it's probably better over all the way it is, even with a few posts we may wish didn't exist.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.