NBA Gave Referees 'Jab Or Job' Ultimatum, Suit SaysLaw360 (November 14, 2022, 1:47 PM EST) -- Three former longtime NBA officials filed suit in Manhattan federal court Saturday claiming that the league fired them for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine despite their sincere religious objections.
Former referees Mark Ayotte, Ken Mauer and Jason Phillips alleged in the suit that when the NBA implemented its inoculation mandate, they were told they could apply for exemptions due to religious beliefs. After applying, they were subjected to "adversarial" interviews without their attorneys present and were given a "jab or job" ultimatum after being told by two league executives that religious exemption was a "high standard to meet," according to the suit.
"Apparently, zero NBA referees or replay center personnel met that 'high standard,'" the suit alleges. The executives and the NBA "denied every single application for a religious exemption by such employees, including those submitted by Mark, Kenny and Jason."
The plaintiffs, all three of whom are practicing Christians, say they chose to remain unvaccinated and were later terminated by the league. Because of the NBA's virtual monopoly over professional basketball in the U.S., their job prospects were severely limited, the suit reads.
The suit claims that despite the NBA's vaccine mandate for referees, 89% of its officials contracted the virus during the 2021-22 season. The league did away with the mandate for the current NBA season, but has refused to reinstate the plaintiffs, according to the suit.
In their letters to the NBA expressing their objections to the mandate, all three officials cited the purported use of aborted fetal cells in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines, according to the suit.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines used fetal cell lines during the testing stages, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine used a fetal cell line in the manufacturing and production process. None of the vaccines contain abortion-derived cells as ingredients.
Mauer wrote that he had struggled to accept Pope Francis' promotion of the vaccines and therefore attended services for different denominations each week. Mauer also wrote that the vaccines were "unnatural and will pollute my body forever with synthetic mRNA," and said this was unacceptable due to his belief that "God's name is on every human chromosome."
Mauer claims that NBA executives used his acknowledged use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as evidence that he "does not in fact believe solely in the divine healing abilities of the human body," according to the suit. Mauer counters in the suit that this is an overstatement of his beliefs, since he does not hold beliefs against all medical treatment.
The suit contends that all three of the plaintiffs hold strict anti-abortion stances that would be offended by getting inoculated with any of the vaccines.
"Although it is not necessary for faith-based beliefs to be well-founded or even coherent to be worthy of solicitude, plaintiffs' concerns about the use of fetal cell lines have a sound basis in fact: fetal cell lines (specifically HEK-293 and PER.C6) were instrumental in bringing the Pfizer, Modrna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 shots to market," the suit reads.
According to the suit, human embryonic kidney 293, or HEK-293, is a cluster of cells from the kidney of a second-trimester fetus that was terminated in either 1972 or 1973. The cells were used to develop mRNA technology during efficacy testing. Human primary embryonic retinal cells, or PEC.C6, were taken from a retina of an 18-week fetus terminated in 1985 and were used to develop the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which does not use the mRNA method, according to the suit.
"It's obvious that the NBA did not give any credence to the requests for religious exemptions and their process entailed, really, an interrogation looking to find cracks in the arguments, jump on that and use those alleged cracks as an opportunity to deny exemptions," plaintiff attorney Sheldon Karasik of Sheldon Karasik PC told Law360 on Monday.
The NBA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The suit alleges religious discrimination and violations of New York State Human Rights Law. The plaintiffs are seeking front and back pay, damages and attorney fees.
The plaintiffs are represented by Sheldon G. Karasik of Sheldon Karasik PC.
Attorney information was not immediately available for the NBA.
The case is Phillips et al. v. National Basketball Association et al., case number 1:22-cv-09666 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
--Editing by Karin Roberts.
Read more at: https://www.law360.com/sports-and-betting/articles/1548992?copied=1
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