A judge said Monday he is inclined to grant a partial retrial of a lawsuit filed against ABC by former “General Hospital” cast member Ingo Rademacher, who was fired in 2021 and saw his role recast for opposing the network’s coronavirus vaccination mandate.
Rademacher lost the initial suit in June 2023 when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge found that because ABC also fired actor Steve Burton, who plays Jason Morgan in the series, the network’s decision was based on the health mandate and not on Rademacher’s politics.
However, Burton was rehired in January 2024 and made his reappearance on “General Hospital’ two months later. On Monday, Judge Stephen I. Goorvitch issued a tentative ruling granting Rademacher a new trial on the actor’s wrongful termination claim, but not his faith discrimination and invasion of privacy claims.
After hearing arguments, the judge said he was taking the case under submission. He is scheduled to rule by March 3.
In their court papers, Rademacher’s lawyers maintained that ABC’s re-hiring of Burton undermined its argument that Rademacher’s political beliefs did not play any role in its decision to fire him in 2021. In his ruling, Goorvitch noted that Rademacher’s attorneys did not find out about Burton’s rehiring until depositions were taken in a related case.
“Simply, the court would not have granted (dismissal of the wrongful termination cause of action) if presented with this type of evidence,” the judge wrote in his tentative ruling.
In their court papers, ABC attorneys argued that Burton’s situation had nothing to do with that of Rademacher.
“Mr. Burton was rehired in 2024, years after the end of the COVID-19 global health emergency and at a time when (ABC owner) Disney’s vaccine mandate was no longer in effect,” the network lawyers stated in their pleadings. “Thus, his rehiring has no logical impact on (Rademacher’s) claims”
Burton was denied a religious exemption because ABC determined that as an unmasked actor acting on a closed, indoor set in close proximity with other unmasked actors — some of whom were elderly and at risk if they contracted the coronavirus or were too young to be vaccinated — could not be accommodated without undue hardship, ABC lawyers contend in their court papers.
“Likewise, the newly discovered fact that Mr. Burton was rehired in 2024, years after plaintiff was terminated, proves nothing, particularly as the COVID-19 vaccine policy at issue in this case was no longer in effect when Mr. Burton was rehired as an actor on `General Hospital,”’ the network attorneys maintain in their pleadings.
The 53-year-old Rademacher sued ABC in December 2021. He alleged ABC wrongfully denied him a religious exemption and used the employee mandatory vaccination policy as an excuse to fire him. The company made it look like they wanted him to stay, but claimed they could not accommodate him in order to disguise that he was being terminated for other reasons, the actor further alleges.
ABC lawyers argued there were no triable issues in the case and that Rademacher’s religious conviction claims were suspect.
“ABC’s vaccine policy was the product of an extensive deliberative process at (network parent company) Disney,” the ABC lawyers stated in their court papers. “Senior leaders at Disney and experts in medicine, infectious disease and infection control were part of the process to reach this important decision.”
The vaccination rule required applicable employees to be vaccinated by Nov. 1, 2021, unless they qualified for a religious or medical exemption, which would be considered on a case-by-case basis, the ABC lawyers further stated in their court papers.