Tennessee woman awarded nearly $700K after being fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccine requirement

[LumRaiderFan]

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From the article:

A Tennessee woman who was fired from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (BCBST) for refusing to comply with its COVID-19 vaccine requirement for employees has received a settlement worth nearly $700,000.

A federal jury found that Tanja Benton "proved by a preponderance of the evidence" that her decision to refuse the vaccine was based on a "sincerely held religious belief," according to the settlement obtained by WTVC.

For a total of over $687,000, the jury awarded Benton more than $177,000 in back pay, $10,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages.

 

Sad that she had to even prove what her reasoning was.

[5GallonBucket]

1 hour ago, LumRaiderFan said:

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From the article:

A Tennessee woman who was fired from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (BCBST) for refusing to comply with its COVID-19 vaccine requirement for employees has received a settlement worth nearly $700,000.

A federal jury found that Tanja Benton "proved by a preponderance of the evidence" that her decision to refuse the vaccine was based on a "sincerely held religious belief," according to the settlement obtained by WTVC.

For a total of over $687,000, the jury awarded Benton more than $177,000 in back pay, $10,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages.

 

Sad that she had to even prove what her reasoning was.

She shouldn’t have had to get one period. No Covid shot should have been mandatory nor reason should have been needed….PERIOD!!

 

[LumRaiderFan]

23 minutes ago, 5GallonBucket said:

She shouldn’t have had to get one period. No Covid shot should have been mandatory nor reason should have been needed….PERIOD!!

 

More proof that choices matter.

[tvc184]

That pesky First Amendment sfain…..

[tvc184]

11 hours ago, 5GallonBucket said:

She shouldn’t have had to get one period. No Covid shot should have been mandatory nor reason should have been needed….PERIOD!!

 

 If you are just making an opinion statement, sure.

If you are talking a legality, not so much.

In that case the Supreme Court disagrees with you.

[LumRaiderFan]

5 hours ago, tvc184 said:

 If you are just making an opinion statement, sure.

If you are talking a legality, not so much.

In that case the Supreme Court disagrees with you.

Another one they got wrong.

[CardinalBacker]

1 hour ago, LumRaiderFan said:

Another one they got wrong.

Lol... vaccines weren't the problem until the Dems got elected.  "Operation Warp Speed" should have been reason enough to get Trump re-elected, right?  The facts remain that the virus was defeated by God and good vaccines.   If you argue with either of those two reasons, you're wrong, IMO. 

If you lined up for 187 vaccinations during basic training but thing our military shouldn't have to take the Covid vax, you don't have a problem with mandated vaccinations, you have a problem with you political reasonings interfering with your good sense.  I remember when only liberal fruitcakes refused to have their kids vaccinated and y'all didn't want those hippy kids going to school with your kids.  Even though most of you are morbidly obese, eat like over-the-road truck drivers, and do whatever the complete opposite of exercise is.  Gotta think about your health before taking a vaccine, though. 

 

BTW.... whatever happened to all of those conservative researchers that "proved" the covid vaccine caused your blood cells to mutate, contained dead baby parts, and tiny microchips?  I miss those guys.  

[LumRaiderFan]

2 minutes ago, CardinalBacker said:

Lol... vaccines weren't the problem until the Dems got elected.  "Operation Warp Speed" should have been reason enough to get Trump re-elected, right?  The facts remain that the virus was defeated by God and good vaccines.   If you argue with either of those two reasons, you're wrong, IMO. 

If you lined up for 187 vaccinations during basic training but thing our military shouldn't have to take the Covid vax, you don't have a problem with mandated vaccinations, you have a problem with you political reasonings interfering with your good sense.  I remember when only liberal fruitcakes refused to have their kids vaccinated and y'all didn't want those hippy kids going to school with your kids.  Even though most of you are morbidly obese, eat like over-the-road truck drivers, and do the complete opposite of whatever exercise is.  Gotta think about your health before taking a vaccine, though. 

 

BTW.... whatever happened to all of those conservative researchers that "proved" the covid vaccine caused your blood cells to mutate, contained dead baby parts, and tiny microchips?  I miss those guys.  

So you agree that a mandate to force an untested vaccine on anyone is ok?

Leave Trump out of this, I know that's difficult for you, but he didn't call for any mandates, your boy did?

Now answer the question, should anyone have lost their job for refusing to take the vaccine?

And if you don't think there have been any adverse health effects, you haven't been paying attention.

[CardinalBacker]

Trump got booed for mentioning that he took the booster. By then, the red-hatted fools all decided that the vaccine was bad. Not because of science, but because a new President got elected.  
 

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But Rs turned on the vaccine because Trump was no longer in control, period. Based on zero science, just emotions and butt-hurt. 
 

To answer your question? Yes. Your employer should have the right to terminate you for refusing to vaccinate. 
 

Real life scenario. Early on the partners in our company decided that they all would take the vaccine. Part of our business is calling on clients, many of whom are elderly or infirm. 
 

Well, one of the partners lied. He didn’t get the vaccine, and as you can guess, he made service calls on several clients, many of which in different locations came down with it immediately after he visited. This was back when local health departments were doing tracing on the transmission of the disease. So, you have a situation where our people, through the usual course of business, infected clients, some of whom were hospitalized. His refusal and subsequent dishonesty put our clients and our other employees at great risk, not only medically, but any good attorney could easily prove that our firm hadn’t done EVERYTHING that they could have done to protect ourselves and our customers. Pure negligence.  
 

That guy should have been terminated. Absolutely. 
 

His “rights” s don’t include infecting other people because he didn’t like the changes in Washington. Because that’s all it was. He was 1000% pro vaccine until Biden got elected-then had a change of heart. 

[LumRaiderFan]

1 minute ago, CardinalBacker said:

Trump got booed for mentioning that he took the booster. By then, the red-hatted fools all decided that the vaccine was bad. Not because of science, but because a new President got elected.  
 

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But Rs turned on the vaccine because Trump was no longer in control, period. Based on zero science, just emotions and butt-hurt. 
 

To answer your question? Yes. Your employer should have the right to terminate you for refusing to vaccinate. 
 

Real life scenario. Early on the partners in our company decided that they all would take the vaccine. Part of our business is calling on clients, many of whom are elderly or infirm. 
 

Well, one of the partners lied. He didn’t get the vaccine, and as you can guess, he made service calls on several clients, many of which in different locations came down with it immediately after he visited. This was back when local health departments were doing tracing on the transmission of the disease. So, you have a situation where our people, through the usual course of business, infected clients, some of whom were hospitalized. His refusal and subsequent dishonesty put our clients and our other employees at great risk, not only medically, but any good attorney could easily prove that our firm hadn’t done EVERYTHING that they could have done to protect ourselves and our customers. Pure negligence.  
 

That guy should have been terminated. Absolutely. 
 

His “rights” s don’t include infecting other people because he didn’t like the changes in Washington. Because that’s all it was. He was 1000% pro vaccine until Biden got elected-then had a change of heart. 

lol, you still think the vaccine stopped transmission, this explains a lot.

You are actually a sheep.

Refusing the vaccine had nothing to do with Trump (although you think everything is about Trump) it was folks seeing the nonsense behind pushing an untested vaccine, even on folks that had natural immunity after having Covid.

I bet you still wear a mask in the car alone.

[CardinalBacker]

21 minutes ago, LumRaiderFan said:

lol, you still think the vaccine stopped transmission, this explains a lot.

You are actually a sheep.

Refusing the vaccine had nothing to do with Trump (although you think everything is about Trump) it was folks seeing the nonsense behind pushing an untested vaccine, even on folks that had natural immunity after having Covid.

I bet you still wear a mask in the car alone.

You have no wealth to lose, obviously.  Putting a little money together will cause you to start worrying about losing it all.
 

Negligence has nothing to do with party affiliation.  If a firm sends an employee out to a customer’s home, and that customer dies because of disease that our employee exposed them to, then a lawyer proves to a SETX jury that your firm didn’t do the bare minimum to protect the public/other employees…. Like getting vaccines? Then your firm is out of business.  Guaranteed. 
 

I know a kid that hired in at Valero in ‘21. They told them that they don’t have to take the vaccine, but if they caught COVID during probation, it was over. 

You don’t have to take a vaccine… but nobody has to keep you employed, either.  

I don’t agree with the government mandating vaccines… I mean, polio and whooping cough weren’t that bad, really. 
 

And before you start “but the COVID vaccine wasn’t tested,” neither was the polio vaccine. And people lined up around the block to get their kids vaccinated because it wasn’t a political issue like COVID. 
 

You can literally tell how ignorant a person chooses to be by their vaccine stance. Suddenly every blue collar high dropout is an epidemiologist. 

[LumRaiderFan]

13 minutes ago, CardinalBacker said:

You have no wealth to lose, obviously.  Putting a little money together will cause you to start worrying about losing it all.
 

Negligence has nothing to do with party affiliation.  If a firm sends an employee out to a customer’s home, and that customer dies because of disease that our employee exposed them to, then a lawyer proves to a SETX jury that your firm didn’t do the bare minimum to protect the public/other employees…. Like getting vaccines? Then your firm is out of business.  Guaranteed. 
 

I know a kid that hired in at Valero in ‘21. They told them that they don’t have to take the vaccine, but if they caught COVID during probation, it was over. 

You don’t have to take a vaccine… but nobody has to keep you employed, either.  

I don’t agree with the government mandating vaccines… I mean, polio and whooping cough weren’t that bad, really. 
 

And before you start “but the COVID vaccine wasn’t tested,” neither was the polio vaccine. And people lined up around the block to get their kids vaccinated because it wasn’t a political issue like COVID. 
 

You can literally tell how ignorant a person chooses to be by their vaccine stance. Suddenly every blue collar high dropout is an epidemiologist. 

You’re right about one thing, you can definitely tell how ignorant a person chooses to be on a vaccine stance, especially if they feel a mandate is ok.

Snowflakes, was the term, as I recall.

 

[CardinalBacker]

19 minutes ago, LumRaiderFan said:

You’re right about one thing, you can definitely tell how ignorant a person chooses to be on a vaccine stance, especially if they feel a mandate is ok.

Snowflakes, was the term, as I recall.

 

Mandates are wrong. But even more wrong is refusing to take a certain vaccine for political reasons after an entire lifetime of taking other mandated vaccines “on principle.”

I’m over here wishing that certain groups of people that stayed masked up for years felt just as strongly about using condoms for the last couple of decades. 

[tvc184]

1 hour ago, CardinalBacker said:

Lol... vaccines weren't the problem until the Dems got elected.  . 

 

That is nonsense.

According to kff.org, Blacks have received at least one dose of the vaccine as of July, 2022 smaller than any other racial or ethnic group. Several states did not report those statistics and the ones that did have mostly stopped reporting. Things that make you go hmmm…

But let’s not digress. I don’t think anyone would argue that Blacks have far an away the highest percentage of Democratic voters, usually 90% or higher. Yet when it comes to Covid vaccines, they are in the smallest group. This is quoted from the KFF article;

Across the 36 states for which a total vaccination rate could be calculated by race/ethnicity as of July 11, 2022, 87% of Asian, 67% of Hispanic, and 64%of White people had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, higher than the rate for Black people (59%). 

I can assume by your logic, about 40% of those Blacks who refused to get the vaccine, will be voting Trump this election. Those pesky Black conservatives again……

[CardinalBacker]

7 minutes ago, tvc184 said:

That is nonsense.

According to kff.org, Blacks have received at least one dose of the vaccine as of July, 2022 smaller than any other racial or ethnic group. Several states did not report those statistics and the ones that did have mostly stopped reporting. Things that make you go hmmm…

But let’s not digress. I don’t think anyone would argue that Blacks have far an away the highest percentage of Democratic voters, usually 90% or higher. Yet when it comes to Covid vaccines, they are in the smallest group. This is quoted from the KFF article;

Across the 36 states for which a total vaccination rate could be calculated by race/ethnicity as of July 11, 2022, 87% of Asian, 67% of Hispanic, and 64%of White people had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, higher than the rate for Black people (59%). 

I can assume by your logic, about 40% of those Blacks who refused to get the vaccine, will be voting Trump this election. Those pesky Black conservatives again……

I think you misunderstood my post. That post had nothing to do with black people. 
 

My point is that trump fans were all about the vaccine, giving trump credit for operation warp speed, etc… until Biden got elected. Once the Dems got elected, the vaccine was a horrible idea to conservatives. 
 

The irony (hypocrisy, actually) is astounding. I had anti-vaxxer parents that I know personally who had NEVER had their kids vaccinated suddenly calling for mandates for the COVID vax. Then you had guys who had been in the military and gotten every vaccine known to man crying about being forced to take the COVID vax…. Like… really? Your party affiliation is showing. 

[baddog]

20 minutes ago, CardinalBacker said:

I think you misunderstood my post. That post had nothing to do with black people. 
 

My point is that trump fans were all about the vaccine, giving trump credit for operation warp speed, etc… until Biden got elected. Once the Dems got elected, the vaccine was a horrible idea to conservatives. 
 

The irony (hypocrisy, actually) is astounding. I had anti-vaxxer parents that I know personally who had NEVER had their kids vaccinated suddenly calling for mandates for the COVID vax. Then you had guys who had been in the military and gotten every vaccine known to man crying about being forced to take the COVID vax…. Like… really? Your party affiliation is showing. 

Let me guess. You're somewhere in the middle. 

[LumRaiderFan]

20 minutes ago, CardinalBacker said:

I think you misunderstood my post. That post had nothing to do with black people. 
 

My point is that trump fans were all about the vaccine, giving trump credit for operation warp speed, etc… until Biden got elected. Once the Dems got elected, the vaccine was a horrible idea to conservatives. 
 

The irony (hypocrisy, actually) is astounding. I had anti-vaxxer parents that I know personally who had NEVER had their kids vaccinated suddenly calling for mandates for the COVID vax. Then you had guys who had been in the military and gotten every vaccine known to man crying about being forced to take the COVID vax…. Like… really? Your party affiliation is showing. 

You got it wrong, it wasn't about the vaccine, it was about mandating the vaccine and making you feel like a criminal if you chose not to take it.

That was all democrats, had nothing to do with Trump.

[LumRaiderFan]

32 minutes ago, CardinalBacker said:

Mandates are wrong. But even more wrong is refusing to take a certain vaccine for political reasons after an entire lifetime of taking other mandated vaccines “on principle.”

I’m over here wishing that certain groups of people that stayed masked up for years felt just as strongly about using condoms for the last couple of decades. 

So refusing to take a vaccine, for any reason, is worse than the mandate?

Gotcha

[CardinalBacker]

4 minutes ago, LumRaiderFan said:

You got it wrong, it wasn't about the vaccine, it was about mandating the vaccine and making you feel like a criminal if you chose not to take it.

That was all democrats, had nothing to do with Trump.

So you took it? 
 

“No.”

[CardinalBacker]

24 minutes ago, LumRaiderFan said:

You got it wrong, it wasn't about the vaccine, it was about mandating the vaccine and making you feel like a criminal if you chose not to take it.

That was all democrats, had nothing to do with Trump.

Wrong again.  The mandates were a result of 74 million people deciding on January 20th, 2021 that the vaccine was suddenly a bad idea. 
 

Like i said…. Overnight strong conservative men switched roles smelly liberal women who don’t shave their (arm) pits in regards to vaccines. 
 

Y’all commandeered “my body, my choice” from the liberals. 

[LumRaiderFan]

9 minutes ago, CardinalBacker said:

So you took it? 
 

“No.”

Doesn't matter whether or not I took it, it's about the mandates.

You seem to think this was a Trump thing, not at all.

Maybe you weren't paying attention when there were lots of doctors sounding the alarm about the vaccine and the science behind it (or lack of) and saying there were readily available treatments in hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, with no side effects.

Remember those folks getting blocked on social media and some were even calling for punishments for those dispersing misinformation, I do, and so do informed folks, apparently unlike yourself.

Turns out those folks were right, the mandate of the vaccine and the Emergency Use Authorization was a money grab, when more effective treatments were available, they just couldn't make pharmaceutical companies and Fauci any richer.

Maybe you shouldn't look to the government for all your answers, they get it wrong, A LOT!

[LumRaiderFan]

1 minute ago, CardinalBacker said:

Wrong again.  The mandates were a result of 74 million people deciding on January 20th, 2021 that the vaccine was suddenly a bad idea. 
 

Like i said…. Overnight strong conservative men switched roles smelly liberal women who don’t shave their pits in regards to vaccines. 
 

Y’all commandeered “my body, my choice” from the liberals. 

Another dumb post, look at the numbers of folks that took the vaccine, around 80% of the population.

You really are ate up with TDS, just try to go one day without making a post about him, I bet you can't.

[CardinalBacker]

10 minutes ago, LumRaiderFan said:

Doesn't matter whether or not I took it, it's about the mandates.

You seem to think this was a Trump thing, not at all.

Maybe you weren't paying attention when there were lots of doctors sounding the alarm about the vaccine and the science behind it (or lack of) and saying there were readily available treatments in hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, with no side effects.

Remember those folks getting blocked on social media and some were even calling for punishments for those dispersing misinformation, I do, and so do informed folks, apparently unlike yourself.

Turns out those folks were right, the mandate of the vaccine and the Emergency Use Authorization was a money grab, when more effective treatments were available, they just couldn't make pharmaceutical companies and Fauci any richer.

Maybe you shouldn't look to the government for all your answers, they get it wrong, A LOT!

How did I forget Ivermectin?

 

”I’m not putting that unproven vaccine in my body! I’m gonna take horse de-wormer every other week instead!”

Just three years ago y’all were giving credit to Tractor Supply for saving your lives and this week y’all boycotting ‘em. So ungrateful. 

i forgot how truly dumb the anti vax movement was. 

[LumRaiderFan]

2 minutes ago, CardinalBacker said:

How did I forget Ivermectin?

 

”I’m not putting that unproven vaccine in my body! I’m gonna take horse de-wormer every other week instead!”

Just three years ago y’all were giving credit to Tractor Supply for saving lives and this week y’all boycotting ‘em. So ungrateful. 
 

Once again showing your ignorance.

[CardinalBacker]

7 minutes ago, LumRaiderFan said:

Once again showing your ignorance.

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"You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it," the FDA tweeted.

😂🤣😂

 

I’m eating lunch in a restaurant (by myself, as usual… and I don’t know why) and dying laughing.