EZRA LEVANT | A $10M class action lawsuit settles, requiring a hospital to rehire everyone they fired for not taking the jab
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 1 minute
Words per Minute
168.15556
Summary
Very interesting case out of the state of Illinois. A $10 million class action lawsuit settlement by a major network of hospitals that refused to grant religious exemptions for the jab. Well, they just agreed to pay $10M to those they fired and to rehire them all, and to change their policies. I ll take you through what happened and what didn t happen, and whether maybe this might spread.
Transcript
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Hello, my Rebels. Very interesting case out of the state of Illinois.
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A $10 million class action lawsuit settlement by a major network of hospitals
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that refused to grant religious exemptions for the jab.
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Well, they just agreed to pay $10 million to those people they fired
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and to rehire them all and to change their policies.
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Very interesting story. I'll take you through what happened and what didn't happen
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Tonight, a $10 million class action lawsuit settles, requiring a hospital to rehire everyone they fired
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It's July 29th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
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I'm traveling for work, and so I'm not in my normal studio at our world headquarters in Toronto.
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Normally, I sit there, and we have a fancy backdrop, and I type up my script, and I load it in a teleprompter,
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I'm not in my studio, and I don't have a teleprompter, so I'm going off the top of my head.
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And I did write some notes on my phone that I'm going to read, and I hope you'll forgive me for not being as buttoned down as I sort of am.
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I also left my jacket in Toronto, so I'm just wearing a shirt.
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I want to tell you some news that's actually pretty important, and a little bit surprising to me,
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because I know that we're the anti-journalists.
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You know our motto, telling the other side of the story.
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So my job is to be skeptical, but that said, every once in a while, you, I guess, by human nature,
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you think, well, maybe the other side is right on certain things, and here's what I mean.
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I was skeptical that you could sue institutions for firing you for not being jabbed.
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I thought, well, you know, in Canada, our judges certainly haven't sided with workers who want to object to taking the jab.
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In fact, other than Arthur Pawlowski's dramatic victory in the Alberta Court of Appeal about two weeks ago,
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I really haven't seen a great victory using our constitutional rights.
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So I thought, well, maybe there just won't be one.
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And then more to the point, so many labor unions in Canada simply rolled over
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because the unions agreed with the company bosses to force their union members to get jabbed.
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I had come to the belief, and shame on me, that you just couldn't sue if you were fired for not being jabbed.
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But here's an important case out of the state of Illinois.
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Well, that's where the great city of Chicago is, a large health care network fired staffers who didn't want the jab
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and refused to give them a religious exemption.
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Well, to their peril, a large class action lawsuit was filed against them.
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And today, they signed an agreement to pay out more than $10 million,
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which tells me if they're signing an agreement to pay out $10 million voluntarily,
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they were terrified of a much larger loss if the matter went to trial.
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Now, I'm going to read from my phone a little bit of the exact wording because I haven't memorized it.
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But here's the press release put out by their class action lawyers.
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Health care workers settled COVID shot mandate for $10.3 million.
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And those are real U.S. dollars, not our Canadian mini bucks.
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Obviously, the law firm is pretty pleased with itself.
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And you can see that the health network has signed on to it.
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Well, they're crying uncle and offering $10 million.
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Today, Liberty Council, that's the name of this class action law firm.
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They're obviously interested in liberty issues.
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Settled the nation's first class-wide lawsuit for health care workers over a COVID shot mandate.
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the class action settlement against North Shore University Health System
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is on behalf of more than 500 current and former health care workers
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and denied religious exemptions from the COVID shot mandate.
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The agreed-upon settlement was filed today in the Federal Northern District Court of Illinois.
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And that's that document I showed you, the health network's own signature on it.
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As a result of the payment, North Shore will pay $10,337,500
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to compensate these health care employees who were victims of religious discrimination
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and who were punished for their religious beliefs against taking an injection
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Some vaccines, some medicines, are made using aborted fetal cells,
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and use those cells to do medical engineering from.
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And that offends some people, many people in fact,
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who believe that life is sacred and that aborting a baby
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and using their cells for medical profit is grossly unethical.
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That was one of the reasons that people made a religious exemption.
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There are other religious reasons you can think of for not wanting to take a vaccine,
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but using cells in some way that came from abortions is a powerful reason.
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Now, what I've just said to you is illegal to say,
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under the terms of service of YouTube and other social media,
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if you say that vaccines are in any way associated with fetal cells,
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even the research of those vaccines associated with fetal cells,
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you will get your social media account struck out.
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You will get a strike, as they call it, and you could be suspended.
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The University Health System in Chicago just signed a $10 million settlement
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for violating the very right that YouTube and other social media companies says
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doesn't even exist, and if you claim it exists, you'll be silenced.
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This is a historic first-of-its-kind class action settlement against a private employer
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who unlawfully denied hundreds of religious exemption requests to COVID-19 shots,
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Of course, there are certain constitutional rights that all of us have against our government
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in Canada using our charter of rights and the United States using a bill of rights,
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and I think every other private company that thought that they would join the Pfizer mob
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against their own employees, I think they should wake up and read this very carefully.
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The settlement must be approved by the Federal District Court.
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Employees of North Shore who were denied religious exemptions will receive notice of the settlement
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and will have an opportunity to comment, object, request to opt out,
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or submit a claim form for payment out of the settlement fund,
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all in accordance with deadlines that will be set by the court.
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As part of the settlement agreement, North Shore will also change its unlawful
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no-religious-accommodations policy to make it consistent with the law
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and to provide religious accommodations in every position across its numerous facilities.
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No position in any North Shore facility will be considered off-limits
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to unvaccinated employees with approved religious exemptions.
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They're being forced to do the right thing going forward by lawyers.
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As I tell you, a lot of people mock lawyers, make fun of lawyers,
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but in this case, I think the lawyers fought for freedom and won.
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In addition, employees who were terminated because of their religious refusal of the COVID shots
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will be eligible for rehire if they apply within 90 days of final settlement approval by the court,
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and they will retain their previous seniority level.
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You know, I had an anecdote that I was thinking about tweeting about when it happened,
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but I refrained because I didn't want to identify the person in question,
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and the lady at the gate, when I gave her my ID, she looked up at me and said,
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thank you, and I thought she was just saying thank you because I was giving her my ID,
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We didn't talk long about our stance on forced vaccines,
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after having been sacked for not taking the jab,
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and I think Air Canada should have fought harder,
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but after, imagine the pain and the financial and moral suffering she was through.
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I think we need class action lawsuits like the one I'm reading about.
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I'll read a little bit more from the press release,
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and then I'll tell you what's interesting here.
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In October 2021, Liberty Council sent a demand letter to North Shore
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on behalf of numerous health care workers who had sincere religious objections
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to North Shore's mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy.
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If North Shore had agreed then to follow the law and grant religious exemptions,
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and instead denied all religious exemption and accommodation requests
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along with a motion for a temporary restraining order and injunction.
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And then I'm going to quote from one of the senior members of this Liberty Council
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Liberty Council Vice President of Legal Affairs
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and Chief Litigation Counsel Horatio Mihat said,
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We are very pleased with this historic $10 million settlement
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The drastic policy change and substantial monetary relief required by the settlement
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will bring a strong measure of justice to North Shore's employees
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who were tallowously forced to choose between their conscience and their jobs.
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I think this is the most important thing in this whole story.
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This settlement should also serve as a strong warning to employers across the nation
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that they cannot refuse to accommodate those with sincere religious objections
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How many companies, big or small, decided to go along with the mom,
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I'd be worried if I was an American company that denied religious exemption.
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And, you know, it sounds like I've never heard of this health care system before,
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and if they had 500 or so staff that were involved,
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it sounds like they're a very large institution.
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boss, we're going to lose this one, better pay.
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and I'd say most companies are smaller than this health system,
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you're going to say, well, if the big guy with the big lawyers
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and the big insurance policies thought it was a loser,
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That won't even buy you a Pfizer yacht or a Pfizer private jet.
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but the work done started in the previous Bush administration.
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of the largest criminal fine to that point in American history.
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Take a listen and listen to who paid the fine and why.
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Within the Department of Justice, as well as beyond it,
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to announce a historic settlement with Pfizer Incorporated,
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and its subsidiary, Pharmacia and Upjohn Company,
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relating to Pfizer's allegedly illegal promotion
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In a combination civil and criminal settlement,
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Within that $2.3 billion is a criminal fine of $1.195 billion,
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which makes it the largest criminal fine in history.