In the wake of her agreement to arbitrate her claims, a former Cedars-Sinai Medical Center employee has dropped her lawsuit against the hospital in which she said she was fired in 2021 a religious objection to the facility’s mandatory employee requirement to take the flu vaccine, which she says contains pork products.
Plaintiff Myesha Tarvin also maintained that an April 2021 neck injury she suffered played a role in her termination. Her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed in June 2022 alleged wrongful termination, disability and religious discrimination and failure to accommodate. Her attorneys filed court papers Monday with Judge Michael Stern asking that her complaint be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning it cannot be refiled.
On July 22, the judge signed an order affirming an agreement between the parties to submit the case to binding arbitration.
Tarvin, a 44-year-old Seventh-Day Adventist, does not eat pork or any products that contain pork, the suit stated. She worked for 11 years as a Cedars-Sinai senior administrative assistant and in 2020 management required employees to receive flu vaccinations, so with the help of her pastor, Tarvin asked for a religious exemption because the flu vaccine has pork products, according to the suit.
However, Tarvin’s request was denied and she was forced to receive the vaccine, according to the suit.
In 2021, Tarvin was under a mandate to receive both the flu vaccine and the coronavirus shot, the suit stated. She again asked for an exemption on religious grounds for the flu vaccine, according to the suit. Her request was denied and she was put on leave in September 2021 and terminated the next month, according to the suit.
The stable employment Tarvin had with Cedars-Sinai “was taken away from her instantly” and she has had a hard time finding comparable employment, according to the suit, which further stated that Tarvin’s loss of her job has affected her financially and emotionally.