Douglas Smith is a devout Christian whose faith compelled him to refuse the COVID-19 vaccination that his former employer Burbank Unified School District required of him. In response to Smith’s request for a religious exemption to the vaccine mandate, the District placed Smith on an indefinite unpaid leave of absence. Smith asked for, but the District refused to provide, masking and weekly PCR testing as a reasonable accommodation. Smith was on unpaid leave from the District for about a year before he began working at an unrelated school that had no vaccine mandate.
Smith sued the District, bringing three claims under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), Government Code sections 12900, et seq.: religious discrimination, failure to prevent discrimination, and retaliation.
The District filed a summary judgment motion, which the trial court granted. We affirm. The trial court correctly found the District met its burden of establishing unpaid leave was the only reasonable accommodation the District could offer to unvaccinated teachers that did not pose an undue burden. Undesignated statutory citations refer to the Government Code.
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