Federal jury says BlueCross BlueShield must pay $700,000 to employee fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccine

A federal jury found that BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee improperly fired an employee for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine and awarded her nearly $700,000.

The federal jury in the case, which was litigated in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, found that the insurance company owes the plaintiff, Tanja Benton, $687,240 in backpay and damages after she was let go in 2022.

The judgment order in the case said Benton “proved by a preponderance of the evidence that her refusal to receive the COVID vaccination was based upon a sincerely held religious belief.”

At the height of the pandemic and subsequent rollout of vaccines, both the government and federal companies struggled with how to handle workers who refused to be vaccinated for various reasons, chief among them being concerns about the long-term effects of the new inoculations and religious reasons.

Benton had worked at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee primarily as a biostatistical research scientist from 2005 through November 2022 before being let go for the refusal, according to WTVC.

As part of the lawsuit, Benton argued she didn’t have a very public-facing job with the insurance company and had a portfolio of a dozen or fewer clients per year. She said interactions with those clients were infrequent and not always in person.

In the lawsuit, Benton said taking the vaccine would “anger and dishonor God” and that she “firmly believes, based upon personal research, that all COVID-19 vaccines are derived from aborted fetus cell lines.”

After BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee mandated the vaccine, Benton filed a religious exemption request, which was denied. Once she appealed, she was told there were no exceptions for someone in her role as a biostatistical research scientist, and a company representative encouraged her to try for a different job.

She was then fired and filed the lawsuit in question.

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In the end, Benton prevailed, and the jury awarded her over $177,000 in back pay, $10,000 in compensatory damages, and $500,000 in punitive damages.

The Washington Examiner reached out to BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee for comment.