Court Rules TV Station Was Right to Fire Cameraman for Refusing Covid Vaccine

A court ruled that a television station had the right to fire a cameraman who refused Covid-19 vaccinations.

George Rodrique, a cameraman for the news show Chronicle, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Boston-based television station WCVB-TV and its parent company Hearst Communications.

In 2021, WCVB-TV denied Rodrique’s request for a religious exemption from the company’s Covid-19 vaccination requirement and fired him for refusing to take the vaccine.

Rodrique sued WCVB-TV, claiming that the station had violated his rights to religious freedom because he had come to believe the vaccines were derived from aborted babies. The cameraman said his beliefs require him to avoid “polluting” his body with foreign substances, particularly those that are manmade and do not exist in nature.

In his lawsuit, Rodrique also stated his belief that “God has given humans natural immunity, and that commercial vaccines created, owned, and marketed by profit-making corporations intrude on God’s sacred place within the temple of the human body.”

According to Boston.com, Rodrique argued that the television station could have accommodated him by giving him more assignments that did not require him to interact with other people, transferring him to helicopter videography, or having him film using a drone.

Rodrigue alleged that the television station’s decision to instead terminate his employment financially impacted his family and led him to depend on his wife’s income. The television cameraman also noted that the company’s discrimination against his beliefs had a “terrible emotional effect” on him.

However, on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit dismissed Rodrique’s wrongful termination lawsuit. According to Universal Hub, the appeals court granted that the cameraman may have had legitimate religious reasons to reject Covid-19 vaccinations.

But the court ruled that the cost of providing separate accommodations for him to keep working meant WCVB-TV had the right to fire him, because employers have the right to listen to federal public-health officials offering “objective medical evidence” in a pandemic. Therefore, the company didn’t have to wait for a court to conclude vaccines were reducing the spread of the disease.

In its ruling, the court detailed how Hearst Communications had proven that accommodating Rodrique would have been a costly venture. Before the introduction of Covid-19 vaccines, WCVB acquired additional vehicles to ensure reporters and camera operators could reach news locations individually. Once vaccinations were rolled out, the station sought to reduce the number of vehicles by allowing vaccinated employees to once again ride together in a single vehicle.

However, the court says that “because Rodrique was unvaccinated, his team was excluded” from riding together in one vehicle, and “it cost WCVB-TV over $7,000 for Rodrique to maintain his own vehicle from May 2021 to November 2021, including over $2,000 in fuel.” Following this, Hearst Communications then required its employees to get Covid-19 vaccinations or be fired.

Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.