An Alberta court has ruled against WestJet over its termination of an employee for failing to comply with the company’s COVID-19 vaccination policy.
Justice A.P. Argento of Alberta’s Court of Justice said the airline’s dismissal of Duong Yee was “not a proportional response.”
Yee was terminated in December 2021 after being denied an exemption to WestJet’s policy of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination on religious grounds.
On Sept. 8, 2021, the company said it would be introducing a policy that all employees were required to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 30, 2021. WestJet said that employees were required to provide a declaration of vaccination status by Sept. 24, 2021.
On Sept. 20, Yee submitted a request for religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccination. However, WestJet denied the request in a letter on Oct. 4, according to the court document. The letter said the decision was final and Yee was not able to appeal.
The letter also said that Yee needed to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 30 as a “mandatory condition of employment” and stated if she did not comply, she would be put on unpaid leave of absence starting Nov. 1.
“Yee was warned that failure to be fully vaccinated by November 30, 2021, without a WestJet approved accommodation, may result in the termination of employment for cause as early as December 1, 2021,” the court decision said.
Yee filed a court action arguing that WestJet was discriminatory because it denied her exemption request and therefore her termination was wrongful.
The court said WestJet was required under the Canadian Human Rights Act to accommodate religious exemption.
However, WestJet concluded that Yee’s objection to the mandatory vaccination was secular “based on discussions with the legal team,” the court decision said.
WestJet argued that Yee’s concerns over the vaccine were not strictly religious, but that Yee was also concerned over the safety of the vaccine.
The airline’s evidence “did not explain how or why the Plaintiff could not hold both a religious objection and a non-religious objection to vaccination on safety grounds at the same time,” the court decision said.
“It also did not explain why holding a non-religious objection in addition to a religious objection meant the Plaintiff was seeking an accommodation solely on non-religious grounds.”
Argento said WestJet’s policy was “reasonable and enforceable” but said in denying Yee an exemption, the policy “was not a reasonable application of its Vaccination and Accommodation Policies.”
The justice concluded that WestJet did not have to terminate Yee, as Yee had been working from home for six months prior to the policy introduction, and had requested to continue to work from home.
“The Plaintiff was already working from home and there was no legal impediment preventing that from continuing.”
Yee’s attorney, Jody Wells, said they were pleased with the court decision, calling it an “important precedent.”
“Justice Argento has rendered a well-reasoned and just decision of the kind that goes some distance in restoring faith in the courts,” she said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.
Wells said that the court recognized Yee was entitled to a religious exemption from the vaccine.
“Critically, the Court did not stop there, deciding also that termination of Mrs. Yee’s employment was not a proportionate response to her abstention from vaccination in the circumstances, irrespective of whether her religious beliefs should have been accommodated,” she said in the statement.
The Epoch Times contacted WestJet but did not hear back by publication time.
