ABC Disney hoped they could move on and get a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed against them; things haven’t worked out their way.
Two soap opera General Hospital crew members sued the company over mandates, claiming their religious beliefs were discriminated against.
Apparently, James Wahl and Tim Wahl worked with ABC, and the network agreed to honor their religious beliefs until they didn’t and canned them for not complying with their mandate.
“Plaintiffs requested a religious exemption to the Covid Vaccine Mandate,” reads the original complaint. “Although
ABC said it would grant exemptions for sincerely held religious objections to the Covid-19 shots, it refused to accept Plaintiffs’ request. It denied their requests without explanation, one week after they requested them.”
“These actions were unlawful,” it continues. “ABC does not have the authority to force a medical treatment on its employees against their will. Even if it did, it must offer religious exemptions to anybody who requests one. It cannot discriminate among religions and cannot second-guess the sincerity of one’s religious beliefs without an objective basis for doing so. It did not have one here. ABC’s actions constitute religious discrimination and violate Plaintiffs’ rights under state law.”
LA Superior Court Judge Stephen Goorvitch believes a jury must decide the case.
“While defendant’s counsel identifies seeming inconsistencies, plaintiffs raise sufficient facts to give rise to a triable issue, viz., their explanations of their religious beliefs,” he said. “The jury, not the judge, should determine whether plaintiffs were genuine in their beliefs, given the disputed facts and the necessity of making credibility determinations.”
“As many people move beyond the pandemic, this ruling should serve as a reminder of the thousands of people who lost their careers because they asserted their rights and stood up to their employers’ efforts to make them violate their conscience,” the Walhs lawyer Scott Street said. “The pandemic won’t be over until every corporation that violated its employees’ rights has been held accountable. We look forward to presenting this case to a jury soon.”
