13 Of 14 Staff Suing NorthShore Over Vaccine Mandate Have Left Their Jobs

EVANSTON, IL — The federal judge hearing a challenge to a suburban hospital group's COVID-19 vaccination requirement for employees said a group of 14 current and former NorthShore University HealthSystem staffers can continue calling themselves "Jane Doe" in court.

Last month, U.S. District Judge John Kness lifted a temporary order he had issued, which opened the door for NorthShore to fire the workers.

In court filings, attorneys for the past and present health care workers say they were denied religious exemptions from the hospital group's mandatory staff vaccination policy on the grounds that their Christian faith forbids the use of fetal cell lines in medical research.

At a status hearing Thursday, Kness noted that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals had indeed rejected the employees' request to proceed pseudonymously while considering their appeal, which was dropped almost immediately after.

But the trial court judge said he would still have to be persuaded through a formal motion for reconsideration before requiring the workers to publicly reveal their names.

"The way I see it is: I made the ruling that I made," Kness said Thursday at a status hearing with attorneys for NorthShore and the Jane Doe plaintiffs — 11 nurses, a patient access representative, an application analyst and a pharmacy tech.

"I made the ruling that I made for the reasons that I stated," Kness said. "I'm not inclined at this point, based on the status report itself, to revisit that ruling."

In a joint status report ahead of the hearing, NorthShore attorney David Dahlquist pointed out that all but one of the 14 Jane Does no longer work for the hospital group. It was not clear whether they had quit or been fired.

"Plaintiffs originally supported their argument to proceed using pseudonyms by alleging they would face harassment and retaliation at work if their identities were made known," he said. "This argument is now moot as the Named Plaintiffs are no longer employed at NorthShore."

NorthShore added three additional hospitals this month through a merger. It now includes nine area hospitals and more than 25,000 employees.

During the hearing, Dahlquist said the judge's direction was helpful as the case moves into the fact discovery stage.

"It does create a bit more of an administrative burden, of course, on us, on the court," Dahlquist said. "Future filings may need to be redacted, [or filed] under seal. Obviously, those are hoops we've jumped through before, and we'll jump through again."

Horatio Mihet, chief litigation counsel of Orlando, Florida-based nonprofit Liberty Counsel and lead attorney for Jane Does, said in the status report that the issue had already been settled, and NorthShore already knows the identity of the plaintiffs anyway.

"NorthShore is transparently seeking to avoid accountability for its unlawful actions by forcing Plaintiffs to choose between asserting their meritorious claims and being exposed to threats, harassment and violence for their religious beliefs and private medical decisions," Mihet said.

Also Thursday, Kness issued a schedule for preliminary filings in the case that compromised between the accelerated timetable sought by the Jane Does and a longer one requested by NorthShore.

"I think that the schedule proposed by the plaintiffs is a little bit aggressive, the schedule proposed by the defendants is a little slow," he said.

The employees attorneys are scheduled to file a motion seeking class action certification on May 16.

According to Mihet, "several hundred" past and present NorthShore employees have filed or will soon file employment discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Once they receive right-to-sue letters in late spring or early summer, they will have 90 days to file suit, the plaintiffs' attorney said, asking the judge to arrange the schedule to provide a ruling by August on whether or not the class is certified to allow those employees a chance to potentially join the class.

Kness said he was unable to guarantee that he would be able to issue a ruling by any specific deadlines.

"The best I could say to the potential additional plaintiffs," the judge said, "is they're going to have to make their own decision as to whether they want to press forward with an individual case or wait and see what happens with class certification."

Related:

• Unvaccinated NorthShore Staff Drop Appeal Of Order Allowing Their Firing
• NorthShore Nurses Who Refuse Vaccine Can Be Fired, Judge Rules
• Vaccine Mandate Challenge Argued Before Federal Judge
• Judge Blocks Firing Of NorthShore Nurses Who Decline Vaccination
• NorthShore Staff Sue Over Religious Exemptions To Vaccine Mandate