Burbank High School
LOS ANGELES — Burbank's public schools didn't violate a teacher's religious freedoms or discriminate against him by enforcing a policy forcing nearly all employees who requested a religious exemption from the district's Covid vaccine mandate to take unpaid leave and lose their income for years, a California state appeals court has ruled.
On Oct. 7, a three-justice panel of the California Second District Appellate Court denied the appeal of plaintiff Douglas Smith in his dispute with the Burbank Unified School District.
The ruling upheld the decision of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Gail Killefer.
"The District treated all vaccine exemption requests the same way: it granted each request, gave all exempted teachers the same accommodation of unpaid leave, and gave alternative accommodations only to non-teacher employees who did not have daily contact with others," the appellate justices said in their ruling. "The trial court was right to reject Smith’s allegation that intentional religious discrimination motivated the District to place him on unpaid leave."
The dispute had landed in court in 2023, nearly two years after the Burbank school district had imposed its Covid vaccine mandate.
According to court documents, Smith had worked as a high school chemistry and physical sciences teacher in Burbank schools since 1992 and "had planned to work for the District until retirement." According to court documents, Smith had no disciplinary issues, "all of his performance evaluations were positive and he generally enjoyed his job."
However, his work situation changed quickly at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
At that time, the Burbank district shut down in-person instruction, ostensibly at the direction of state and other public health officials. They remained in a "distance-learning approach" to academic instruction until early 2021.
In April 2021, the district shifted to a "hybrid teaching model," which included some in-person and some remote instruction by video conferencing services, like Zoom.
However, during the summer of 2021, as the district moves toward fully reopening schools to full-time in-person instruction, the Burbank district imposed its Covid vaccine mandate, requiring all teachers and others whose jobs required them to work in the school buildings or other district offices to be receive a Covid vaccine.
The district asserted this was in keeping with public health guidance which, at the time, asserted that "vaccination against COVID-19 is the most effective means of preventing infection..."
According to court documents, the district's leadership determined the vaccine mandate "was the most effective way it could protect the safety of its students and others."
In mandating workers get the Covid shots, the district asserted it would allow for certain kinds of requested exemptions to the mandate.
Smith and about 100 other teachers and other district employees requested exemptions on religious grounds. According to court documents, Smith is "a devout Christian whose faith compelled him to refuse the COVID-19 vaccination."
However, for teachers and other district employees who could not otherwise work remotely, the district offered only one accommodation: Mandatory unpaid leave until the district would lift the mandate.
Smith still refused to get the shot, and was put on unpaid leave.
The district did not lift the vaccine mandate until the 2024-2025 school year.
In the meantime, Smith filed the required leave of absence forms which allowed him to ostensibly keep his job, albeit without pay.
However, after waiting a year, Smith sought new employment opportunities, and ultimately landed a position in another school district, which did not have such a Covid vaccine policy. Smith formally resigned in 2024.
In the meantime, however, Smith sued the school district, asserting the mandatory unpaid leave policy amounted to illegal religious discrimination. He said the district's refusal to consider any alternative accommodations punished religious employees for seeking to exercise their faith by asking to be excluded from the vaccination orders.
However, the judges said they believed the district didn't need to allow religious workers to continue working in their jobs in order to satisfy anti-discrimination laws and constitutional protections.
Rather, they said, the district's blanket unpaid leave policy was the accommodation, as it would allow the employees to remain employed, even if they weren't being paid.
In the appellate decision, the justices likened the district's policy to accommodations for religious adherents seeking to be excused for religious holidays. In those instances, the justices noted, courts have ruled unpaid leave was an acceptable accommodation.
And in this case, the justices said the accommodation was also "reasonable," even if the unpaid leave stretched on for years.
"Unpaid leave was a reasonable accommodation because it eliminated the conflict between Smith’s religious practice and the District’s requirement that he receive the COVID vaccination," the justices wrote.
The decision was authored by Justice John Shepard Wiley Jr. Justices Maria E. Stratton and Matthew Scherb concurred.
Smith was represented by attorneys Louis Benowitz, of the Benowitz Law Corporation, of Sherman Oaks; Sunjay Bhatia, of the Bhatia Law Firm, of Torrance; and Jeffrey Lewis, of Jeff Lewis Law, of Rolling Hills Estates.
The Burbank school district was represented by attorneys Mark R. Bresee, Marlon C. Wadlington and Scott D. Danforth, of the firm of Atkinson Andelson Loya Ruud & Romo, of San Diego.
