Two Beverly Hills firefighters have sued the city of Beverly Hills over its vaccine mandate, which requires they be immunized against COVID-19.
Plaintiffs Josh Sattley and Ettore Berardinelli Jr also named Councilman John Mirisch, Los Angeles County, and county health officer Muntu Davis in their complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last week.
The lawsuit, filed by attorney Scott Street, referenced a Sept. 29 Tweet from Councilman Mirisch in which he questioned exemptions.
“If any of the firefighters who applied for exemptions on an unprecedented scale are gaming the system — and it seems highly likely that many, if not most of them are — it is nothing short of outrageous,” Mirisch stated. “The firefighters applying for an exemption will be interviewed under penalty of perjury to ascertain whether their refusal to get vaccinated is medically necessary or rises to the level of a bona fide religious conviction.”
Mirisch is a former mayor of Beverly Hills and film studio executive.
“We think people are entitled to their opinions about all these issues but calling firefighters, who object to this or who seek religious exemptions in good faith, liars who are going to be prosecuted for perjury and who are trying to game the system is not proper especially when you are a sitting city councilman and former mayor of Beverly Hills,” said Street who is representing the plaintiffs.
In August, the county issued an order requiring that all county healthcare workers, which include first responders, receive the COVID-19 vaccine unless they filed for a medical or religious exemption.
“The city has not been honoring requests for religious exemptions in good faith,” Street told the Southern California Record. “They denied several without a good faith basis, in our opinion. The ones they granted were just temporary exceptions. We believe that, under the law, if someone's entitled to an exemption, then they're entitled to an exemption. It can't be temporary. It can't be taken away.”
Sattley has been suspended without pay while Berardinelli is continuing to work under a temporary religious exemption, according to Street.
“The claims that we're bringing are primarily claims for declaratory injunctive relief,” Street added. “It’s not an individual claim. It's brought on behalf of all people similarly situated without being a class action because we’re not seeking monetary damages on those claims. So, we won’t get into the complicated class action rules but it's an action brought by the plaintiffs as being beneficially interested in the issues and the relief sought.”