A lawsuit filed by three nurses against a Palm Springs medical center and its COVID-19 vaccine mandate is proceeding to discovery.
“They were coerced to get the vaccine then they were suspended without pay as a further coercion to get the vaccine and then they were terminated,” said the plaintiffs’ San Diego attorney Matthew P. Tyson.
Cindy Balch, Lavonne Perez, and Egle Balsiene sued the Eisenhower Medical Center in April alleging it was inconsistent in how they responded to their applications for medical and religious exemptions.
Balch applied for both a medical exemption and a religious exemption while Perez and Balsiene applied for religious beliefs exemptions.
“The hospital should never have mandated that any of these nurses get the vaccine,” Tyson told the Southern California Record. “It wasn't medically necessary for them and the FDA-approved version actually was not on the market and truly available for them to take. So, it could not be mandated.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the hospital retaliated when the nurses declined to accept the vaccine.
“They were voicing an objection to be compelled to take the vaccine because they had a statutory right to decline it under California law, federal law, and international law,” said co-counsel Bryan Garrie. “In spite of that lawful objection, they were still being coerced and threatened to lose their livelihood, lose their careers, and leave their employment in a bad way.”
Ultimately, all three nurses were suspended without pay and eventually terminated.
The complaint further accuses the hospital of disparate treatment.
“Retaliation concerns how the conduct of Eisenhower in response to their objections while the disparate treatment is pointing out that Eisenhower treated them differently from a manner than they treated the employees who received the vaccine,” Garrie said.
Finally, the lawsuit alleges that no later than September 2021, COVID-19 vaccinated people were admitted as patients to Eisenhower Medical Center with vaccine breakthrough infections.
In its reply, however, Eisenhower answered that it is without sufficient knowledge or information to form a belief regarding the allegation.
“We asked them about what happened at their own hospital so how could they not know,” Garrie added. “We're going to get documentation on everything and we're going to follow the money.”
The nurses seek compensatory damages, punitive and exemplary damages, attorney’s fees for enforcement of an important right affecting the public interest, attorney’s fees under statute, pre-judgment interest, costs of suit, including expert witness fees, and an injunction prohibiting Eisenhower from imposing a COVID-19 vaccination requirement.