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Federal Judge: Houston Hospital May Force Employees to Get COVID Shot
Headline USA ^ | 06/13/2021

Posted on 06/13/2021 8:30:42 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

A federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by employees of a Houston hospital system over its requirement that all of its staff receive the experimental COVID-19 shot.

The Houston Methodist Hospital system suspended 178 employees without pay last week over their refusal to get the shot.

Of them, 117 sued seeking to overturn the requirement and over their suspension and threatened termination.

In a scathing ruling Saturday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston deemed lead plaintiff Jennifer Bridges’ contention that the vaccines are “experimental and dangerous” to be false and otherwise irrelevant.

He also found that her likening the vaccination requirement to the Nazis’ forced medical experimentation on concentration camp captives during the Holocaust to be “reprehensible.”

Hughes also ruled that making vaccinations a condition of employment was not coercion, as Bridges contended.

“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” Hughes concluded.

Jared Woodfill, a Houston lawyer representing Bridges and the other clients, promised an appeal.

“All of my clients continue to be committed to fighting this unjust policy,” Woodfill said in a statement. “What is shocking is that many of my clients were on the front line treating COVID-positive patients at Texas Methodist Hospital during the height of the pandemic. As a result, many of them contracted COVID-19. As a thank you for their service and sacrifice, Methodist Hospital awards them a pink slip and sentences them to bankruptcy.”

Employees had a June 7 deadline to complete their immunization.

In a Tuesday memo, the hospital system’s CEO, Marc Boom, said that 24,947 employees had complied with the jab requirement and that 27 of the 178 others had received the first of a two-dose shot and wouldn’t be fired if they got their second. The rest are subject to termination.

He also wrote that 285 other employees received medical or religious exemptions, and 332 were deferred because they were pregnant or for some other reason.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: 1moretime; abortion; antivaxxers; baboons; covid19; harpies; harridans; hospital; houston; searchandfind; vaccination
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To: ConservativeInPA

Indeed.

Slippery slope, and all.


21 posted on 06/13/2021 9:10:50 PM PDT by Jane Long (America, Bless God....blessed be the Nation 🙏🏻🇺🇸)
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To: SonAboveAnItch

I wonder how far the employers whims are to be entertained at this point. If the employer demands its employees smoke weed or have vasectomies or have their tubes tied to remain employed under the current line of thinking it’s permissible. I know you can always quit. That’s easier said than done in many cases. With a mortgage and bills many can’t quit. We have a soft version of indentured servitude in play with big business as the new masters in this modern day peculiar institution in America.


22 posted on 06/13/2021 9:33:42 PM PDT by sarge83
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To: SeekAndFind

Wrong. Dead wrong. This is going to the Supreme Court ASAP

YOU CANNOT FORCE VACCINES OR SHOTS ON CITIZENS.

THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN DECIDED.


23 posted on 06/13/2021 9:49:33 PM PDT by Truthoverpower (Arizona !!!! Now the TRUMP TRAIN is getting back on TRACK ! TRUTH! FREEDOM ! LIBERTY! )
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To: SeekAndFind
RC - Just Say No (Official Video)
24 posted on 06/13/2021 10:06:50 PM PDT by \/\/ayne (I regret that I have but one subscription cancellation notice to give to my local newspaper)
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To: skr
Not that I condone forced vaccinations, but the pro-abortion phrase doesn’t quite fit. Unlike pregnancy, other people can be affected by a virus.

“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” Hughes concluded.

Those all look like relatively low-level - maybe even "whimsical" - demands. "I've just decreed that the workday shall now begin at 7:00 a.m. instead of 9:00 a.m." One week later: "The workday now begins at 11:00 a.m.!" One week later: "Begins at 5:30 a.m.!"

Keywords are "or other directive." No mention of "reasonable."

"You want to keep your job as a flight attendant, you gotta get an abortion!" VERY REASONABLE! (Can't have women in their 8th month being stewardesses, after all!)

Regards,

25 posted on 06/13/2021 10:09:49 PM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: skr
Not that I condone forced vaccinations, but the pro-abortion phrase doesn’t quite fit. Unlike pregnancy, other people can be affected by a virus.

“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” Hughes concluded.

Those all look like relatively low-level - maybe even "whimsical" - demands. "I've just decreed that the workday shall now begin at 7:00 a.m. instead of 9:00 a.m." One week later: "The workday now begins at 11:00 a.m.!" One week later: "Begins at 5:30 a.m.!"

Keywords are "or other directive." No mention of "reasonable."

"You want to keep your job as a flight attendant, you gotta get an abortion!" VERY REASONABLE! (Can't have women in their 8th month being stewardesses, after all!)

Regards,

26 posted on 06/13/2021 10:09:50 PM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Truthoverpower

RE: THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN DECIDED.

Can you tell us when and by what higher court?


27 posted on 06/13/2021 10:22:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: skr

FDA approved vaccines are required and have long been required for schools, employment, military etc. (Maybe not the millions and millions of illegal aliens, foreign nationals, unlawful enemy combatants, et al).

The Chicom virus (apparently a bioweapon) vaccine hasn’t been approved yet, it was rushed through production and was authorized under emergency use provisions. This is the difference.

Under federal law, no one can be forced to take an experimental medicine or vaccine or coerced into clinical trials. Those volunteering have to fully understand and provide “informed consent.” I’m not arguing some people shouldn’t want to think about it, I’m not “anti vaxxer” or anything like that, I’m just pointing out what the law is.

It is rapidly turning into one of the worst debacles of all time. And the economic damage alone is incalcuble.

People accepting “free donuts” are probably not “fully informed” people.


28 posted on 06/13/2021 10:59:12 PM PDT by Freedom4US
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To: SeekAndFind

I believe this also violates the Nuremberg Code... Forced experimentation on unwilling Human subjects. That’s what this amounts to.

Employees are being forced into one great, big clinical trial, only if they have a severe adverse reaction, they have no legal recourse available to them. Not only is that employee potentially permanently removed from the work force, but the hospital loses an employee.


29 posted on 06/13/2021 11:33:39 PM PDT by Tacrolimus1mg (Do no harm, but take no sh!t.)
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To: SeekAndFind

She’s a former bartender who’s about the age that women tend to hit the wall (menopause).


30 posted on 06/13/2021 11:55:49 PM PDT by familyop
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To: SeekAndFind
She’s Leading the Fight Against Mandatory Vaccines in Texas. She Also Happens to Be a Nurse.
TexasMonthly
By Peter Holley
May 19, 2021

"...Jennifer Bridges, a 39-year-old former bartender...Though she has firsthand experience caring for patients who attribute sudden health issues to COVID-19 vaccines, Bridges said her distrust stems from reading articles shared among her network of coworkers, family, and friends. She also believes the popular internet conspiracy theories that mRNA vaccines, such as those offered by Moderna and Pfizer, alter recipients’ DNA and that the media has aided public health officials’ attempts to censor news of vaccine-related deaths."

31 posted on 06/14/2021 12:24:57 AM PDT by familyop
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To: proust

32 posted on 06/14/2021 1:44:16 AM PDT by Salamander (Salamander has barbaric tendencies.../Gundog)
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To: Truthoverpower

Not gonna help a friend whose employer forced him to get the jab.

He was sick as a dog for weeks, got moving around again and “suddenly” had a “heart attack”.

He _was_ a healthy guy.

Now he’s in the hospital having tons of “tests” run to see why.

Yeah, right.


33 posted on 06/14/2021 1:47:07 AM PDT by Salamander (Salamander has barbaric tendencies.../Gundog)
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To: SeekAndFind
Based on this precedent, is this judge saying that if an employer insisted that all employees be injected with tracking microchips to track them like we do with our pets, or be fired, that it would be legal and the workers can find other jobs if they don't like it?

-PJ

34 posted on 06/14/2021 1:50:42 AM PDT by Political Junkie Too (* LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: SeekAndFind

If my employer required to do something I didn’t want to do, I’d quit.


35 posted on 06/14/2021 2:25:50 AM PDT by socal_parrot (Squirrel!)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,”

I agree with the Judge. The line to whine about it is down the street.


36 posted on 06/14/2021 2:30:11 AM PDT by Beagle8U ("Jim Acosta pissed in the shallow end of the press pool.")
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To: SeekAndFind

a flu that is 99 percent survivable and only effects the elderly and people with pre conditions, the insanity continues


37 posted on 06/14/2021 2:45:29 AM PDT by ronnie raygun
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To: skr

I remember everybody getting those. My doctor held me out of those. No big scar on my shoulder.


38 posted on 06/14/2021 2:59:23 AM PDT by BOBWADE (WWG1WGA)
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To: SeekAndFind

FYI: Registered Nurse here. It is common practice at hospitals to require vaccinations of employees. Annual influenza combined with being up to date on MMR and DPT. It’s part of the job.


39 posted on 06/14/2021 4:32:26 AM PDT by teofila
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To: Lurkinanloomin

I know a lot of refuseniks working in healthcare.

None have been fired.

None.

They’ll never be able to replace them.


40 posted on 06/14/2021 4:37:36 AM PDT by mewzilla (Those aren't masks. They're muzzles. )
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