Jury: Bay Area Transit Workers Fired for Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine to Get More Than $1 Million Each

At issue is a vaccine mandate for BART workers in San Francisco that was imposed in 2021.

A woman closes her eyes while receiving a COVID-19 vaccine at Sydney Road Family Medical Practice in the Balgowlah suburb of Sydney, Australia, on Jan. 10, 2022. Jenny Evans/Getty Images

Rail transit officials in California’s Bay Area have been ordered to pay more than $7 million to transit workers who were fired because they refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine years ago.

On Oct. 23, a federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with six former San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) workers who had refused to get the vaccine for religious purposes.