A judge says he intends to enter judgment in favor of a physician assistant who sued Los Angeles County, alleging she was discriminated against when she was fired in 2023 for not abiding by the county’s coronavirus vaccination mandate.
Katherine Katz, a Catholic, alleged in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that management told her she was not sincere enough in her beliefs. Judge William Fahey presided over a nonjury trial of Katz’s suit, took the issues under submission on Feb. 28 and announced his decision on Monday.
The judge said that if either side has any objections to his tentative statement of decision, they have until March 21 to let him know. A copy of the tentative statement of decision was not yet available on the court’s website.
In their final brief, Katz’s attorneys chided the county’s argument that the “substantial motivating reason” for firing Katz was her failure to get a coronavirus shot and not because of her religion.
“This is a classic example of a distinction without a difference as the county knew Katz could not comply with that policy because of her religion,” Katz’s attorneys stated. “It is like an employer telling a disabled employee, `I’m not firing you because of your disability, but because you cannot climb a ladder’ or telling a nursing mother, `We aren’t firing you because of your sex, but because you take work time to breast feed.”’
In their closing brief, the county attorneys contended that at trial, Katz testified she is Christian, not Catholic, and has not practiced Catholicism for 15 years. The lawyers also maintained that Katz admitted taking Ibuprofen and many medications for hypertension, both of which have been tested in fetal cells despite the plaintiff’s stated belief against medical interventions involving fetal cells.
“The county denied plaintiff’s religious exemption request because it found her request to be insincere,” the county attorneys further stated in their closing brief.
In her suit filed in October 2023, Katz said she was hired by the county as a physician assistant in January 2018 and was fired in March 2023. She claimed both economic and emotional distress damages.