Robert Mittendorf/The Bellingham Herald (TNS)
Nearly 20 former Bellingham City employees have sued the city and former Mayor Seth Fleetwood over their terminations for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
In the lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. Western District Court in Seattle, the employees seek unspecified punitive and compensatory damages in a jury trial.
All 18 employees, including former police officers, firefighters, mechanics and public works department employees, are being represented by the Schexnayre Law Firm of Mandeville, La., and locally by Charis Holtsclaw.
He was fired for not complying with Fleetwood's executive order, issued on Sept. 21, 2021, requiring all city employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine by Dec. 6, 2021. According to Bellingham spokeswoman Janice Keller, about 80% of city employees had been vaccinated by that time.
Neither the plaintiffs' attorneys nor Bellingham officials were immediately available for comment late Tuesday evening.
Keller, the city’s communications director and deputy city administrator, said in a May 1 email to The Bellingham Herald that Fleetwood is acting in good faith to mitigate the suffering and death caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“The city’s vaccination mandate was implemented as an emergency order to protect the health and safety of employees and the public, at a time when COVID-19 was causing illness, loss of life, and disruption to our community and our workforce. We took this step out of an abundance of caution, and with the support of many employees who were grateful for this added protection in our workplace. When employees requested adjustments, our team evaluated each request individually and thoughtfully, understanding that their recommendations impacted employees’ lives and livelihoods. These were difficult decisions made during extraordinary times, with employee and public health and safety at the forefront of our minds,” Keller said.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Thursday include Tavasha Thompson, a former Bellingham police officer with 25 years of experience. She ran for the state House as a Republican in 2022 but lost to Rep. Alicia Rule, D-Blaine.
According to the lawsuit, some of the laid-off employees say their requests for medical and religious exemptions to the vaccination mandate were denied.
Keller told The Herald in April that a total of 27 city employees had lost their jobs for not complying with state and city vaccine requirements as of Dec. 7, 2021, when former police officer Joshua D. Wilson sued the city over his termination due to COVID-19. Wilson was not named as a plaintiff in Thursday’s lawsuit.
Keller said six employees resigned, 17 were fired for violating the city’s terms of employment, and four were fired for violating Gov. Jay Inslee’s vaccination order for state employees, teachers and health care workers, such as firefighters.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit say COVID-19 vaccines are medical treatments and that they have a “fundamental right and constitutionally protected freedom to refuse medical treatment.”
The plaintiffs claimed that the vaccines resulted in a “vastly disproportionate (1,000% higher) number of adverse events and deaths,” and that there was no justification for the mandate because the vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission of COVID.
Fleetwood lifted the vaccination requirement on February 13, 2023.
In addition to the lawsuits, the Bellingham Police Guild, the union representing Bellingham police officers, filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the city with the Public Employment Relations Commission on March 14, 2022, alleging the city should have bargained with the union earlier over the vaccine mandate, Keller told The Herald.
The PERC hearing examiner ruled April 26 that the city did not commit an unfair labor practice and dismissed the Guild's complaint in an attached decision. The Guild has 20 days to appeal the decision to the full commission.
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