A U.S. District Court has dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit against Tessy Plastics Corp. brought by an employee over COVID protocols.
The lawsuit alleged the company discriminated against the worker, who had objected to wearing a mask while unvaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
The court's decision to dismiss the complaint is "consistent with Tessy's position" on the matter, Judson Vann, vice president of sales and marketing, told Plastics News in an emailed statement.
According to the decision by Albany, N.Y.-based Judge Mae A. D'Agostino, Tessy emailed employees in August 2021 stating that unvaccinated staff must wear a mask "or will face disciplinary action up to and including termination."
The plaintiff, Brian Vanwyckhouse, claimed in a meeting with Tessy's HR representative and production manager that he had "God-given rights to refuse" to wear a mask and "questioned the validity of the data that [Tessy relied] on, by the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and any other health agency that was involved in the COVID-19 pandemic," the dismissal filing said.
Tessy's staff told Vanwyckhouse that the company had "an obligation to keep ... all the employees safe" and asked him to leave. Tessy issued the employee a three-day suspension "for failure to follow the CDC guidelines and [Tessy's] policy on mask wearing," the filing said.
The court found that the complaint failed to prove that Tessy discriminated against Vanwyckhouse based on religion.
"It is obvious that the controversy at-hand stems from plaintiff's objections to the validity of CDC guidelines and government directives regarding COVID-19 — not any sincere religious beliefs," the filing said.
The court found that Tessy "had a legitimate, non-discriminatory basis for ending plaintiff's employment, i.e., compliance with a state-imposed mandate that was perceivably lawful at the time."
"It is obvious that plaintiff is trying to couch concerns as to the efficacy of vaccines and mask mandates into a sincerely held religious belief for the purpose of maintaining a federal lawsuit challenging his at-will employment discharge," the filing said. "No such action is cognizable."