A former employee at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank is suing parent company Providence Health & Services, maintaining she was harassed and forced to quit in 2022 after applying to be excused on religious grounds from the hospital’s mandatory employee coronavirus vaccination policy, an exemption her boss allegedly said was reserved for Muslims and Jews.
Amanda Castaneda’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit allegations include religious discrimination and harassment, wrongful constructive termination, retaliation, assault, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Castaneda seeks at least $500,000 in compensatory damages as well as punitive damages.
A Providence representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit brought Jan. 19.
Castaneda, a Christian, was hired in March 2019 and worked as a department assistant for imaging services and her supervisors were Andleeb Dombrowski and Kimberly Harrell, both co-defendants in the suit, the suit states.
Before vaccines became available, Castaneda and other PHS employees submitted to twice-weekly COVID-19 testing and wore personal protective equipment, allowing the plaintiff to adequately perform her job, the suit states.
However, in August 2021 PHS began requiring all its employees to receive a COVID vaccine by no later than September 30 of that year, the suit states.
Castaneda explained to Dombrowski that she did not want to receive a COVID shot because doing so would violate her religious beliefs, but Dombrowski insisted that she do so, saying, “As the director, I am telling you, you have to get COVID vaccinated or you will be terminated,” the suit states.
“Not only did Dombrowski try to force Castaneda to violate her Christian faith, but she deliberately hid from Castaneda the fact that the vaccine mandate allowed for religious exemptions,” the suit alleges.
When Castaneda asked to see a written copy of the vaccine mandate to see if she could be excused because of her faith, Dombrowski told the plaintiff that only Muslims and Jews qualified for the exemption and that Christians did not, the suit alleges.
Nonetheless, Castaneda requested an exemption and her request was provisionally approved on condition she continue to be tested and wear protective garb, a decision that left Dombrowski “outraged,” the suit states.
Management subsequently “created a hostile and abusive work environment” based on Castaneda’s religion and her workplace was “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insult,” altering the plaintiff’s conditions of employment, the suit states.
“Defendants deliberately pressured Castaneda to quit her job and created working conditions so intolerable that she would leave,” the suit states.
The hospital hired and trained Castaneda’s replacement, who told the plaintiff, “I got the job and you will be training me on how to do your job,” the suit states.
Castaneda also alleges that last June, Harrell yelled at her, blocked the plaintiff’s way out of her own office and threw some of Castaneda’s papers around.
“Like waves crashing on the beach, defendants sent waves of employees to harass and abuse Castaneda,” the suit states.
Castaneda also started losing her hair from the severe emotional distress, the suit alleges.
When Castaneda complained to human resources, the department told the plaintiff she was the one being investigated, according to the suit, which alleges Castaneda was forced to resign last August due to her allegedly intolerable work environment.