Judge Sticks It To ABC: ‘General Hospital’ Crew Members’ Vaccine Mandate Suit Heads To Trial
deadline.comABC and Disney might be feeling a little under the weather right now. The network and Mouse House owners have lost their attempt to dismiss a discrimination suit by two General Hospital crew member over Covid-19 vaccine mandates.
Now, the religious discrimination action will go to trial unless ABC wants to make a deal to make it all go away. Unlike ex-GH actor Ingo Rademacher in his own now tossed vaccine mandate suit, father and son James Wahl and Tim Wahl “cooperated” with the soap opera and the network on establishing their “genuine” Christian “religious beliefs” and desired exemptions from getting the then mandated vaccines.
Of course, cooperation or not, ABC and GH still canned the duo when they refused to abide by the protocols and get the jab. The network told the Wahls that it was ‘unable to conclude that you are prevented from receiving the Covid-19 vaccine due to a sincerely-held religious belief, practice, or observance.” While not common, such refusals occurred on several shows and projects with more than a handful of those objecting during the pandemic return to work months.
In particular ABC seems to have stumbled more than once in deftly handling religious objections, as the Wahls’ case and possible workarounds that were rejected makes clear-ish Which means, this week’s decision, even though LA Superior Court Judge Stephen Goorvitch did agree with ABC to jettison an invasion of privacy claim, will see the GH VFX department members will get their wish and have a jury make the final judgement on their faith, so to speak. “Because this necessarily involves a credibility determination, it is difficult to grant summary adjudication of this issue,” wrote Judge Goorvitch in a February 20 minute order. “While
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