WILLIAMSPORT — Nearly three dozen unvaccinated Geisinger employees are deemed to have “voluntarily resigned” after failing to submit to COVID-19 testing, as required by the Danville-based health system’s vaccine policy.
Unvaccinated employees were given until Tuesday to submit to twice-weekly sessions and 35 did not, spokesman Matthew R. Van Stone said Wednesday.
That means the approximately 24,000 Geisinger employees either have been fully vaccinated or, if granted an exemption for medical or sincerely held religious beliefs, are submitting to testing, he said.
Changes in employment status will occur if they miss three testing deadlines, he said.
Those who have been terminated are eligible for rehire if they comply with all Geisinger policies, including the vaccine requirement, Van Stone said.
U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann on Tuesday paved the way for the terminations when he refused to issue a preliminary injunction sought by 104 employees to prevent them from being fired for not submitting to testing.
The judge cited a number of reasons in concluding they “have utterly failed to demonstrate a right” for one.
The employees had obtained exemptions from being vaccinated based on religious beliefs and they cited the same reason for not being tested.
However, Brann questioned whether the “science” of the tests was not a factor in the opposition.
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“It is particularly difficult, if not impossible, to square the employees alternate requested relief - that I require all employees to be tested — with their supposedly deeply felt religious opposition…” he wrote.
“If you are willing to be tested so long as the vaccinated are too, you are not religiously opposed to testing.”
Although an injunction was not issued, the battle is not over, said Williamsport attorney Gregory A. Stapp, who represents the employees. “It was only the beginning,” he said.
An injunction was sought to prevent terminations, he explained. As the result of what he claimed were Geisinger’s artificial deadlines, “we had to move quickly.”
Complaints will be filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, he said.
Brann found the employees had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies by not filing complaints with those agencies first.
Stapp said he has instructed all his clients to report to work as scheduled and let Geisinger tell them to go home. That would lead to a wrongful discharge claim, he said.
Dr. Theodore Federoff, the lead plaintiff for the injunction request, was at work Wednesday morning as an emergency room physician at Geisinger Jersey Shore and said he had not been told to go home.
Another avenue open to the plaintiffs would be an appeal to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals but Stapp acknowledged that would be a difficult route.
He said he has a lot more information to present and wants to get the case before a jury.
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