COVID-19
Employee wins lawsuit filed by gov’t agency after losing job for refusing COVID shot
From LifeSiteNews
The federal government successfully sued on her behalf, citing a Title VII violation.
A former assistant manager who was fired after applying for a religious accommodation to refuse the COVID shot has been awarded a six-figure payout after a federal government agency filed a lawsuit on the employee’s behalf.
Federal Judge M. Casey Rodgers on Thursday ordered the Pensacola, Florida store Hank’s Fine Furniture (HFI) to pay a former manager, identified in the lawsuit as “K.M.O.,” $110,000 for refusing to accommodate her request for exemption from the COVID shot due to her “sincerely held Christian beliefs.”
“HFI is permanently enjoined from discriminating against any employee on the basis of religion in violation of Title VII,” Rodgers wrote, the Pensacola News Journal reported Monday. He further declared that HFI “will reasonably accommodate employee and prospective employee religious beliefs during all hiring, discipline and promotion activities,” and “any activity affecting any other terms and conditions of employment.”
Significantly, the store also “cannot require proof that an employee’s or applicant’s religious objection to an employer requirement be an official tenet or endorsed teaching of said religious belief,” according to Pensacola News Journal.
Hank’s Furniture must also adopt a written policy, disseminated to all employees, declaring that HFI “will not require any employee to violate sincerely held religious beliefs, including those pertaining to vaccinations, as a condition of his/her employment.”
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued on behalf of K.M.O. (EEOC v. Hank’s Furniture, Inc., Case No. 3:23-cv-24533-MCR-HTC) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida after it was unable to reach a pre-litigation settlement “through its administrative conciliation process.”
According to Pensacola News Journal, about two weeks after HFI implemented a policy mandating that its employees receive a COVID shot, K.M.O. told the company she would not get the shot due to her “sincerely held religious beliefs,” and then requested a religious exemption.
According to the lawsuit, HFI ignored her request and asked if she would comply with their COVID shot policy, and K.M.O. then told HFI she planned to submit a written religious accommodation request, asking “whether HFI had a particular form she should use.”
HFI reportedly did not respond to her request. When K.M.O. complained that HFI’s unwillingness to grant her a religious exemption was “unjust,” her new supervisor reportedly told her that “HFI did not care why she would not take” the COVID shot and that HFI “would never grant an accommodation.”
On August 20, 2021, HFI announced that any employee who did not take the COVID shot would be fired on October 31, 2021. On August 26, K.M.O. submitted a written religious exemption request, citing Title VII as well as her “sincerely held Christian beliefs.”
When K.M.O. emailed HMI on September 6, 2021, asking for the status of her religious exemption request, HFI informed her that her religious exemption request was “severely lacking,” and then denied it.
K.M.O. then “asked for help to submit an acceptable religious exemption request,” but HFI refused to discuss any accommodation, according to the lawsuit. Then on October 31, she was fired by HFI because she did not comply with their COVID “vaccination” policy.
Birmingham District Director Bradley Anderson remarked regarding the case for an EEOC press release, “Employees should not have to renounce their religious beliefs in order to remain employed. Let this case serve as a reminder that employers should afford accommodation for religious beliefs unless doing so would cause an undue hardship.”
COVID-19
Former Trudeau minister faces censure for ‘deliberately lying’ about Emergencies Act invocation
From LifeSiteNews
By Christina Maas of Reclaim The Net
Trudeau’s former public safety minister, Marco Mendicino, finds himself at the center of controversy as the Canadian Parliament debates whether to formally censure him for ‘deliberately lying’ about the justification for invoking the Emergencies Act.
Trudeau’s former public safety minister, Marco Mendicino, finds himself at the center of controversy as the Canadian Parliament debates whether to formally censure him for “deliberately lying” about the justification for invoking the Emergencies Act and freezing the bank accounts of civil liberties supporters during the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests.
Conservative MP Glen Motz, a vocal critic, emphasized the importance of accountability, stating, “Parliament deserves to receive clear and definitive answers to questions. We must be entitled to the truth.”
The Emergencies Act, invoked on February 14, 2022, granted sweeping powers to law enforcement, enabling them to arrest demonstrators, conduct searches, and freeze the financial assets of those involved in or supported, the trucker-led protests. However, questions surrounding the legality of its invocation have lingered, with opposition parties and legal experts criticizing the move as excessive and unwarranted.
On Thursday, Mendicino faced calls for censure after Blacklock’s Reporter revealed formal accusations of contempt of Parliament against him. The former minister, who was removed from cabinet in 2023, stands accused of misleading both MPs and the public by falsely claiming that the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act was based on law enforcement advice. A final report on the matter contradicts his testimony, stating, “The Special Joint Committee was intentionally misled.”
Mendicino’s repeated assertions at the time, including statements like, “We invoked the Emergencies Act after we received advice from law enforcement,” have been flatly contradicted by all other evidence. Despite this, he has yet to publicly challenge the allegations.
The controversy deepened as documents and testimony revealed discrepancies in the government’s handling of the crisis. While Attorney General Arif Virani acknowledged the existence of a written legal opinion regarding the Act’s invocation, he cited solicitor-client privilege to justify its confidentiality. Opposition MPs, including New Democrat Matthew Green, questioned the lack of transparency. “So you are both the client and the solicitor?” Green asked, to which Virani responded, “I wear different hats.”
The invocation of the Act has since been ruled unconstitutional by a federal court, a decision the Trudeau government is appealing. Critics argue that the lack of transparency and apparent misuse of power set a dangerous precedent. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms echoed these concerns, emphasizing that emergency powers must be exercised only under exceptional circumstances and with a clear legal basis.
Reprinted with permission from Reclaim The Net.
COVID-19
Australian doctor who criticized COVID jabs has his suspension reversed
From LifeSiteNews
By David James
‘I am free, I am no longer suspended. I can prescribe Ivermectin, and most importantly – and this is what AHPRA is most afraid of – I can criticize the vaccines freely … as a medical practitioner of this country,’ said COVID critic Dr. William Bay.
A long-awaited decision regarding the suspension of the medical registration of Dr William Bay by the Medical Board of Australia has been handed down by the Queensland Supreme Court. Justice Thomas Bradley overturned the suspension, finding that Bay had been subject to “bias and failure to afford fair process” over complaints unrelated to his clinical practice.
The case was important because it reversed the brutal censorship of medical practitioners, which had forced many doctors into silence during the COVID crisis to avoid losing their livelihoods.
Bay and his supporters were jubilant after the decision. “The judgement in the matter of Bay versus AHPRA (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency) and the state of Queensland has just been handed down, and we have … absolute and complete victory,” he proclaimed outside the court. “I am free, I am no longer suspended. I can prescribe Ivermectin, and most importantly – and this is what AHPRA is most afraid of – I can criticize the vaccines freely … as a medical practitioner of this country.”
Bay went on: “The vaccines are bad, the vaccines are no good, and people should be afforded the right to informed consent to choose these so-called vaccines. Doctors like me will be speaking out because we have nothing to fear.”
Bay added that the judge ruled not only to reinstate his registration, but also set aside the investigation into him, deeming it invalid. He also forced AHPRA to pay the legal costs. “Everything is victorious for myself, and I praise God,” he said.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), which partners the Medical Board of Australia, is a body kept at arm’s length from the government to prevent legal and political accountability. It was able to decide which doctors could be deregistered for allegedly not following the government line. If asked questions about its decisions AHPRA would reply that it was not a Commonwealth agency so there was no obligation to respond.
The national board of AHPRA is composed of two social workers, one accountant, one physiotherapist, one mathematician and three lawyers. Even the Australian Medical Association, which also aggressively threatened dissenting doctors during COVID, has objected to its role. Vice-president Dr Chris Moy described the powers given to AHPRA as being “in the realms of incoherent zealotry”.
This was the apparatus that Bay took on, and his victory is a significant step towards allowing medical practitioners to voice their concerns about Covid and the vaccines. Until now, most doctors, at least those still in a job, have had to keep any differing views to themselves. As Bay suggests, that meant they abrogated their duty to ensure patients gave informed consent.
Justice Bradley said the AHPRA board’s regulatory role did not “include protection of government and regulatory agencies from political criticism.” To that extent the decision seems to allow freedom of speech for medical practitioners. But AHPRA still has the power to deregister doctors without any accountability. And if there is one lesson from Covid it is that bureaucrats in the Executive branch have little respect for legal or ethical principles.
READ: More scientists are supporting a swift recall of the dangerous COVID jabs
It is to be hoped that Australian medicos who felt forced into silence now begin to speak out about the vaccines, the mandating of which has coincided with a dramatic rise in all-cause mortality in heavily vaccinated countries around the world, including Australia. This may prove psychologically difficult, though, because those doctors would then have to explain why they have changed their position, a discussion they will no doubt prefer to avoid.
The Bay decision has implications for the way the three arms of government: the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, function in Australia. There are supposed to be checks and balances, but the COVID crisis revealed that, when put under stress, the separation of powers does not work well, or at all.
During the crisis the legislature routinely passed off its responsibilities to the executive branch, which removed any voter influence because bureaucrats are not elected. The former premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, went a step further by illegitimately giving himself and the Health Minister positions in the executive branch, when all they were entitled to was roles in the legislature as members of the party in power. This appalling move resulted in the biggest political protests ever seen in Melbourne, yet the legislation passed anyway.
The legislature’s abrogation of responsibility left the judiciary as the only branch of government able to address the abuse of Australia’s foundational political institutions. To date, the judges have disappointed. But the Bay decision may be a sign of better things to come.
READ: Just 24% of Americans plan to receive the newest COVID shot: poll
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