The Kansas Supreme Court has upheld a 2021 law shielding workers who refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine over religious objections.
According to the Sunflower State Journal, the court reversed a lower court ruling by Johnson County Judge David Hauber, who found the state law was preempted by federal law as part of a challenge by Powerback Rehabilitation, a national clinic with an independent living facility. The federal statute required Powerback to implement a universal vaccine requirement or lose Medicare and Medicaid funding.
The state law prohibited employers who implemented COVID-19 vaccine mandates from taking punitive action against any employee who submitted a written waiver stating the requirement would “violate sincerely held religious beliefs.” The law also prevented employers from trying to determine “the veracity” of the claim, the Journal reported.
In fact, the law defined “sincerely held religious belief” as “theistic and non-theistic moral and ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong that are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views.”
Hauber found that the state law was preempted by federal law because it barred health care facilities from inquiring into the sincerity of a prospective employee’s religious beliefs, which is allowed under federal statute.
According to the Journal, Hauber additionally found that the law violated an employer’s due process rights, ruling that “merely” prohibiting them from inquiring into the basis for an exemption “demonstrates an arbitrary and unreasonable action.”
However, in a 4-2 ruling, the Kansas Supreme Court reversed Hauber.
Justice Caleb Stegal, writing for the majority, stated that because the federal vaccine mandate permits a religious exemption and the federal law allows but does not require employers to verify the sincerity of the religious objection, the law does not preempt state law.
“There is no dispute in this case that Powerback’s vaccination policy (including the available exemptions and process for receiving one) complied with federal law but violated Kansas law,” Stegall wrote. “So, simply put, this case asks us to resolve the question — which law must Powerback follow? We hold the two regimes are not in conflict, thus Powerback must comply with both.”
The state law — passed in an around-the-clock session in 2021 — fined businesses that refused to waive the vaccine requirements for religious reasons, and was passed in response to federal vaccine mandates. Governor Laura Kelly signed the bill.
