(LifeSiteNews) — Pharmacy and convenience store company CVS has been hit with another federal lawsuit over its alleged policy of denying all religious accommodation requests.
First Liberty Institute filed a federal lawsuit recently against the company after it fired Gudrun Kristofersdottir, a Catholic nurse practitioner who worked at the company for eight years. It is similar to another lawsuit filed in 2022 against the company after it fired a Baptist nurse practitioner, Robyn Strader, who objected to prescribing abortifacient birth control. There are at least two other similar lawsuits against the company.
The complainant’s case may be bolstered by a Supreme Court ruling in favor of a Christian postal worker who objected to working on Sundays.
The Supreme Court ruled in June 2023 in the Groff v. DeJoy case that employers must prove an “undue hardship” if they are going to deny accommodation requests. The new ruling is mentioned in the latest CVS lawsuit. Gerald Groff, the post office worker, is also a First Liberty client.
READ: Supreme Court unanimously sides with Christian postal worker disciplined for not working Sundays
The latest complaint, filed in a Florida federal district court, alleges CVS violated Kristofersdottir’s right under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to religious accommodations. From 2014 to 2022, the company accommodated the Catholic nurse practitioner who worked at the company’s walk-in MinuteClinic in Tequesta, Florida. “On the rare occasion that a patient would seek such a prescription, she would refer them to another CVS MinuteClinic provider,” the lawsuit stated.
It was rare that a woman would even come to the MinuteClinic for birth control — in any year, only five or 10 women would request birth control during an appointment. Normally, Kristofersdottir would see 2,000 patients per year, according to the complaint. The company considered her a “High Performer,” and her manager, according to the lawsuit, said she did not want to have to fire her, but a change in corporate policy required it.
For years, following company procedures, Kristofersdottir would refer the women to a different MinuteClinic or a different nurse practitioner. Her own CVS location would “occasionally accepted referrals from other CVS MinuteClinic practitioners for services they were not qualified, not willing, or otherwise not able to provide,” according to the lawsuit.
It reportedly offers pharmacists the ability to opt out of dispensing birth control.
Company embraces ‘diversity’ — but not for religious people
But things changed when the company adopted a new “diversity” approach that treated Christianity as a form of “privilege.”
“Indeed, in 2021, CVS’s diversity statement notably omitted religion from a list of other classes protected from discrimination,” the lawsuit stated.
A new policy, implemented by Angela Patterson, the company’s chief nursing officer, ordered all employees to provide “pregnancy prevention services,” no matter if they had religious objections.
This new policy concerned Kristofersdottir, who had read about Robyn Strader, the Baptist nurse practitioner suing CVS. Kristofersdottir’s manager, Lorraine Hendricksen, told her not to worry and that Strader’s situation must have been different.
However, other CVS employees soon got involved and stripped Kristofersdottir of her protection, telling her that employees with similar beliefs had decided to forfeit their accommodations to keep their jobs.
The company then ignored suggestions from Kristofersdottir that would allow her to keep her job, “including transferring her to a larger clinic, a virtual clinic, or a COVID-19 clinic where contraceptives would never be requested.” It denied her request in 2022 for an accommodation — and Hendricksen reportedly objected to the firing. “Ms. Hendricksen told Ms. Kristofersdottir that she was upset that CVS was forcing her to terminate Ms. Kristofersdottir as she had been an excellent employee who excelled at her job and received positive reviews both from her patients and her supervisors,” the lawsuit alleged.
The company also could have moved her to a larger clinic that had more nurse practitioners on staff or used its online system to direct patients to a nearby clinic.
READ: Ruling in favor of fired vaccine-free workers could end provincial jab mandates, former AG says
The 2023 Supreme Court ruling on Groff v. DeJoy established what was already in the law but ignored by the courts: that employers must show that an “undue hardship” would result from granting a religious accommodation, not simply a de minimis, or small, hardship.
Asked for comment on the lawsuit, a CVS spokesman told LifeSiteNews that CVS offers religious accommodations. However, the company did not respond to a follow-up request on Monday for specifics of the process.
“We continue to enhance our MinuteClinic services, growing from providing urgent care to offering more holistic care. Educating and treating patients regarding sexual health matters – including pregnancy prevention, sexually transmitted infection prevention, and safer sex practices are essential functions of the position,” executive director of corporate communications Mike DeAngelis told LifeSiteNews via email. “While we are not able to comment on a specific complaint pending in litigation, we have a well-defined process in place for employees to request and be granted a reasonable accommodation due to their religious beliefs unless it poses an undue hardship on the business and our ability to provide convenient, accessible care to our patients.”
Legal experts say Groff raises bar for CVS
A University of Nebraska law professor, who wrote an amicus brief in support of the Christian postal worker who won his Supreme Court case, told LifeSiteNews the ruling is a “is a great win for religious liberty in the workplace.”
“It truly protects diversity and inclusion by welcoming people of faith into the workplace,” Professor Rick Duncan told LifeSiteNews via email. “It applies ubiquitously in the workplace. It literally protects any religious accommodation you can imagine, so long as the accommodation does not impose substantial costs or hardship on the employer.”
“Employers will likely be much more willing to grant religious accommodations to employees of faith after Groff in order to avoid litigation under this strong standard of protection,” Duncan predicted.
He told LifeSiteNews in a subsequent phone interview that CVS will need to prove accommodating the Catholic nurse practitioner would be an undue hardship.
He referred LifeSiteNews to a law review paper written by a federal judicial clerk that detailed how the 2023 ruling could theoretically be applied by companies, including specifically CVS.
Sarah Child noted in her October 2023 article that CVS was facing three lawsuits for firing people who objected to prescribing birth control: the Strader case in Texas as well as similar situations in Virginia and Kansas.
Child wrote:
Groff’s new standard will likely figure prominently in the ensuing motions practice and trials, especially since plaintiffs claim there was no undue hardship for the years they were accommodated, and CVS now deems the provision of pregnancy prevention treatment to be imperative to the functioning of its business, no exceptions. CVS’s automatic revocation of each plaintiff’s accommodation appears to violate Groff’s prohibition of discrimination against accommodation.
“These denials require a more fulsome explanation of substantial costs to be viable under Groff.”