PITTSBURGH - A Christian physical therapist fired over refusing the COVID-19 vaccine won't be able to sue her former employer in court, a Philadelphia federal judge has held.
Judge Nora Barry Fischer on May 7 ruled against Jamie Petrel, whose 2024 lawsuit said Saber Healthcare Group violated her "strongly held religious beliefs" when it fired her in January 2022.
She had applied for a religious exemption from Saber's vaccine mandate but was rejected in 2021. A second attempt was "ignored," her suit claims.
The problem for Petrel, though, is she signed an arbitration agreement when she was hired in 2021. It says all disputes would go through that process, rather than open court.
"Plaintiff does not deny signing the arbitration agreement," Fischer wrote. "She argues only that she does not remember signing it."
Fischer rejected the argument that someone else could have signed the agreement electronically, but discovery showed instructions sent to her personal email account included a unique password to access the UKG onboarding module Saber used.
"Relying heavily on the absence of an audit trail, Plaintiff directs the Court to Pennsylvania and federal statutes, arguing that because Defendant allegedly violated these statutes in failing to maintain an audit trail, it is precluded from attributing the electronic signature to Plaintiff," Fischer wrote.
"Plaintiff, however, cites to no caselaw in support of these arguments."
Petrel sued Saber for religious discrimination and retaliation, claiming her religious beliefs required her to refuse any medicine or treatment that was researched by using fetal stem cells.
Her beliefs also keep her from injecting "anything into her body that contains toxic substances and involves the destruction of innocent human life," the suit says.
In November 2021, Saber notified employees that they were required to provide proof of vaccination to keep her job, by Dec. 5, 2021. Two weeks before that deadline, she requested a religious exemption that was denied.
On Nov. 29, she appealed, but said she never received a response.
By Jan. 25, 2022, Saber again warned that she needed to be vaccinated or she would be fire a month later.
"Saber Healthcare terminated her employment as she continued to practice her religion by not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine," the suit said.
"Plaintiff believes and therefore avers that defendant discriminated against her on the basis of her religion, Christianity."