Former Beau Rivage manager sues over being fired for refusing COVID vaccine
A former employee of the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino claims he was discriminated against over his religious beliefs when the company fired him for refusing the COVID-19 vaccination.
Jackson County resident Justin Hathorn says in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Gulfport that the Beau Rivage violated his civil rights when he was terminated in October 2021 for refusing the vaccine. Hathorn seeks an unspecified amount in back wages and future earnings, compensatory and punitive damages, attorney's fees, lost benefits, and costs and expenses.
In addition to financial losses, Hathorn said he suffered 'deep humiliation, anxiety and emotional distress.'
Hathorn said he would not get vaccinated because fetal cell lines were used to develop them, according to a letter Beau Rivage sent him September 23, 2021. At the time, more than 14,000 to 15,000 Americans were dying each week from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
In its response to the lawsuit, the Beau Rivage has denied any wrongdoing. The resort maintains that continuing to employ an unvaccinated Hathorn would have created 'an undue hardship' for the company — a legally recognized reason to deny his request. Further, the resort's response says, the Beau Rivage followed all legal and federal guidance in reaching its decision.
The lawsuit says Hathorn started work at the Beau Rivage in July 2008 as a valet attendant and rose 10 years later to the position of senior manager of front services. The job required him to manage guest services provided by the front-services team, plus parking, valet, and transportation, according to the Beau Rivage's September 2021 letter, which is quoted in Hathorn's lawsuit.
The Beau Rivage informed employees in August 2021 that they would need COVID-19 vaccinations. As a Christian, Hathorn's lawsuit says, he subsequently asked for a religious exemption.
The Beau Rivage agrees the resort sent him a packet of information to fill out regarding his request.
Ultimately, the casino decided against the exemption, saying in the letter that it would not be feasible for him to work remotely, or to wear a mask and maintain social distancing for all the many interactions he would need to have with others. COVID testing also was ruled out because of the gaps in protection between tests.
The Beau Rivage letter denying Hathorn's request went on to say, '. . . we have concluded that your continued presence on property, unvaccinated, risks the health and safety of guests, coworkers and yourself.'
While the vaccine mandate applied to salaried employees, his lawsuit says, hourly workers were not required to get vaccinated. During the pandemic, employees were required to wear masks, the lawsuit says, and submit to weekly COVID tests. Hathorn said he was willing to be regularly tested at his own expense.
Beau Rivage admits in its response that 'some union member employees were not vaccinated.'
Fetal cell lines from the cells of fetuses aborted generations ago were used in the testing of the main COVID vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer, but no fetal cell lines are present in the vaccines, according to scientific articles and multiple public health websites.
After he lost his job, Hathorn filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC determined that Hathorn had a right to sue his former employers. The Beau Rivage's vaccine mandate applied to salaried, non-remote employees, the EEOC concluded, saying the resort could have accommodated Hathorn's religious belief without undue hardship.
The Beau Rivage denies the EEOC's letter 'was either factually or legally correct.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Kennedy names 8 vaccine committee replacements, including COVID shot critic
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight new vaccine policy advisers to replace the panel that he abruptly dismissed earlier this week. They include a scientist who researched mRNA vaccine technology and transformed into a conservative darling for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccines, and a leading critic of pandemic-era lockdowns. Kennedy's decision to 'retire' the previous 17-member panel was widely decried by doctors' groups and public health organizations, who feared the advisers would be replaced by a group aligned with Kennedy's desire to reassess — and possibly end — longstanding vaccination recommendations. The new appointees to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices include Dr. Robert Malone, the former mRNA researcher who emerged as a close adviser to Kennedy during the measles outbreak. Malone, who runs a wellness institute and a popular blog, rose to popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic as he relayed conspiracy theories around the outbreak and the vaccines that followed. He has appeared on podcasts and other conservative news outlets where he's promoted unproven and alternative treatments for measles and COVID-19. He has claimed that millions of Americans were hypnotized into taking the COVID-19 shots. He's even suggested that those vaccines cause a form of AIDS. He's downplayed deaths related to one of the largest measles outbreaks in the U.S. in years. Other appointees include Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist who was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 letter maintaining that pandemic shutdowns were causing irreparable harm. Dr. Cody Meissner, a former ACIP member, also was named. Kennedy made the announcement in a social media post on Wednesday. The committee, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC directors almost always approve those recommendations on how Food and Drug Administration-cleared vaccines should be used. The CDC's final recommendations are widely heeded by doctors and determine the scope of vaccination programs. ___ Associated Press reporter Amanda Seitz contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Major airlines may have been secretly selling your flight data to DHS, report claims
Americans' flight data may have been sold to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) without their knowledge, internal CBP documents obtained by 404 Media suggest. A data broker, the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), owned by several of the top airlines in the U.S., including Delta, American Airlines, and United, reportedly gathered the flight records of U.S. travelers and sold access to CBP. Part of the contract was that CBP wasn't allowed to share where the data had originated from, the report says. The data included passengers' names, itineraries, and financial information, according to Wired. CBP is part of the Department of Homeland Security. The agency has stated that it requires the data to support state and local law enforcement in tracking individuals of interest. This comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) outlined how it also bought the data. 'The big airlines—through a shady data broker that they own called ARC—are selling the government bulk access to Americans' sensitive information, revealing where they fly and the credit card they used,' Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said in a statement. "ARC has refused to answer oversight questions from Congress, so I have already contacted the major airlines that own ARC—like Delta, American Airlines, and United—to find out why they gave the green light to sell their customers' data to the government." Publicly shared documents show that ARC is owned and operated by at least eight top U.S. airlines. Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, as well as European airlines Lufthansa and Air France, in addition to Air Canada, all have representatives on the company's board of directors. Over 240 airlines use ARC's services for ticket settlement. The company also connects airlines and travel agencies, locating travel trends with other companies such as Expedia. It also provides fraud prevention, the ARC YouTube channel and website show. The selling of travel information is conducted via the company's Travel Intelligence Program (TIP). The documents obtained by 404 Media via a Freedom of Information Act request state that CBP needed access to the information 'to support federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to identify persons of interest's US domestic air travel ticketing information.' The documents reveal that ARC asked CBP to 'not publicly identify vendor, or its employees, individually or collectively, as the source of the Reports unless the Customer is compelled to do so by a valid court order or subpoena and gives ARC immediate notice of same.' The data delivers 'visibility on a subject's or person of interest's domestic air travel ticketing information as well as tickets acquired through travel agencies in the U.S. and its territories,' the documents state. According to a DHS Privacy Impact Assessment, the data is updated daily and includes more than a billion records over the course of 39 months of travel, both past and future. TIP can be searched using names, credit cards, or airlines. However, the data only includes travel arrangements made using a travel agency accredited by ARC, such as Expedia. 'If the passenger buys a ticket directly from the airline, then the search done by ICE will not show up in an ARC report,' the assessment states. It also says that data is included on both U.S. and non-U.S. persons. The deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, Jake Laperruque, told 404 Media that 'While obtaining domestic airline data—like many other transaction and purchase records—generally doesn't require a warrant, they're still supposed to go through a legal process that ensures independent oversight and limits data collection to records that will support an investigation.' 'The government seems intent on using data brokers to buy their way around important guardrails and limits,' he added. A spokesperson for CBP told Wired that the agency 'is committed to protecting individuals' privacy during the execution of its mission to protect the American people, safeguard our borders, and enhance the nation's economic prosperity.' 'CBP follows a robust privacy policy as we protect the homeland through the air, land and maritime environments against illegal entry, illicit activity or other threats to national sovereignty and economic security,' the spokesperson added. ARC earlier told The Lever that TIP 'was established after the September 11 terrorist attacks to provide certain data to law enforcement … for the purpose of national security matters' and criminal probes. The Independent has contacted ARC and CBP for comment.
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. Bombarded Bill Nye With Endless Anti-Vax Text Screeds
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent a flood of texts to Bill Nye trying to convince the beloved 'Science Guy' of his anti-vax claims. The old text chain, sent before Kennedy became Donald Trump's health secretary, was revealed by Nye during a Men's Health profile of the children's television presenter. The barrage of messages from the prominent vaccine skeptic, which the magazine described as 'miles and miles of texts,' contained numerous links to articles and websites peddling vaccine-autism conspiracies that Nye said he paid no real attention to. 'Just no self-awareness,' Nye said. 'And if you read these articles he sent, they're all this speculation about autism and just cause-and-effect, and mercury in vaccines, that maybe there's a connection. I wrote him back and said, 'Okay, I'll read your book. I think you've confused causation with correlation. Your friend, Bill.'' The stream of messages did not end there, Nye said, even after he told Kennedy, 'Okay, no more texts.' 'He started again! So I cut him off,' Nye said. 'He does not have good judgment. He is not suited for this job.' The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast. Kennedy has led a full-blown assault on vaccines as part of the Trump administration's campaign to restore public 'trust' in the lifesaving shots. That includes the shock move to fire all 17 members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), an expert panel that evaluates vaccine safety and efficacy. All had been appointed under the Biden administration. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Kennedy said vaccines had become a 'divisive issue in American politics' and that public confidence in the health agencies that provide them is 'waning.' Nye said the increase in vaccine skepticism, which soared amid the COVID-19 pandemic, is having real life negative consequences on people's lives. That includes the reaction to a measles outbreak in Texas that primarily hit unvaccinated individuals in the Mennonite community. 'It was a religious sect with historically low vaccination rates. And the argument from the other side is: They have rights not to get vaccinated. No, you don't,' a frustrated Nye said. 'Unvaccinated people can, and usually do, spread a disease. And that's why we have these rules, for public health! It's not arbitrary. It's not about your rights. It's about my rights, people.' Nye didn't hold back on Kennedy's bizarre public stunts either—like chugging raw milk with health influencer Dr. Paul Saladino to promote the Trump administration's initially error-riddled Make America Healthy Again report on childhood illness. 'And then this thing where people want to drink raw milk. No, you don't,' Nye said. 'This is very well understood! Louis Pasteur! You guyyys! What is happening?' For more, listen to Bill Nye the Science Guy on The Last Laugh podcast.
