Attorneys for two former “General Hospital” crew members who say they were wrongfully fired by ABC in 2021 after the network denied them a religion exemption to ABC’s coronavirus vaccination requirement say new evidence shows the rule did not apply in the area where they generally worked.
In court papers filed Tuesday with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Tony Richardson, lawyers for James Wahl and his son, Timothy James Wahl, say the return-to-work agreement between the Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees Local 33 and ABC only allowed the network to impose the vaccine requirement in what was known as zone A, the set where unmasked actors were shooting scenes.
The Wahls worked in zone B and only occasionally went into zone A to occasionally perform special effects tasks, according to the Wahls’ attorneys’ pleadings.
“The essential functions of plaintiffs’ jobs were in zone B, not zone A,” the Wahl lawyers wrote in their pleadings.
The Wahl lawyers further stated in their court papers that they only learned of the new information last week, so on Thursday they will ask Richardson to expedite a hearing on their bid to depose IATSE business representative Ronald Valentine, who they say has agreed to testify during the scheduled Sept. 29 trial and will tell jurors he did not intend the vaccination mandate to apply in zones other than zone A.
ABC opposes the taking of Valentine’s deposition, but not the application for an expedited hearing, according to the Wahls’ attorneys’ court papers, which also state that ABC wrongly characterized the plaintiffs’ objections to vaccination “purely as lifestyle choices that it had no duty to accommodate.”
But in their court papers, ABC attorneys stated that both Wahls admitted they would not take a COVID-19 vaccine under any circumstances, even if the shot had been developed without any connection to fetal stems cell, because they adhered to the principles of homeopathic medicine.
The Wahls were fired in 2021.