Pittsburgh Regional Employees sue over covid-19 vaccine mandate

A group of Pittsburgh Regional Transit employees and former employees filed a discrimination lawsuit in federal court Tuesday challenging the authority’s covid-19 vaccine mandate.

The lawsuit, filed as a class action, seeks to represent not only employees who were terminated by PRT for failing to get vaccinated but also employees who claim they were forced to get vaccinated to keep their jobs.

The lawsuit includes claims for religious discrimination, violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and wrongful termination.

It alleges that 75 employees were terminated for failing to be vaccinated and that their requests for religious or medical exemptions were summarily denied.

PRT spokesman Adam Brandolph said 43 operators and 44 other employees lost their jobs for failing to get vaccinated.

Seven employees died from covid-19 before the vaccine mandate was implemented. None have died since, Brandolph said.

He said he could not comment on pending litigation.

In January, PRT announced the vaccine mandate and said that all employees were required to be vaccinated by March 15. The authority offered a process for employees to seek an exemption, but the lawsuit called that process an “exercise in futility.”

“It is clear from (PRT’s) denials that (it) never intended to grant any of these exemption requests to begin with, and that its entire exemption process was a sham,” the lawsuit said.

Some exemptions were granted, Brandolph said. He said he did not know how many.

In one instance, the lawsuit said, a doctor told a bus operator with preexisting severe anaphylaxis that the vaccine could kill him.

When the operator submitted his request for a medical exemption, it was denied. Then when the operator went to Rite Aid against his doctor’s advice to vaccinated, the lawsuit said the store refused to give it to him.

When the employee provided that information as part of his exemption request, the complaint said it still was denied.

In addition to employees who were terminated, the lawsuit also seeks to represent employees who got the vaccine but were never informed of its risks or told that they had an absolute right to reject it without consequence.

The lawsuit alleges that more than 350 employees sought an exemption and that as many as 700 employees could be part of the class-action suit.

“Facing the prospect of permanent job loss and the inability to provide for their family, coerced plaintiffs succumbed to (PRT’s) coercion and accepted a vaccine in violation of (their) religious convictions and/or their doctor’s advice,” the lawsuit said.

It alleges that employees who were forced to get the vaccine “experienced sorrow, regret, shame, guilt and other emotional distress and damage” as a result.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction against PRT’s vaccine mandate, back pay, reinstatement and attorney’s fees.