Exempting a correction officer from the COVID-19 vaccine requirement would have imposed an undue hardship. A federal district court granted summary judgment to the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) in a suit by a former correction officer who was fired for refusing to comply with the state's COVID-19 vaccination mandate due to his Catholic faith. The court assumed that the plaintiff's religious objection was sincere but concluded that the undisputed record showed an exemption would have created an undue hardship under Title VII. The court also rejected the plaintiff's First Amendment claim, finding that the claim was barred against a state agency under section 1983 and, in any event, failed on the merits under rational basis review (Banks v. Massachusetts Department of Correction, No. 1:24-cv-13163-BEM (D. Mass. Oct. 21, 2026)).
Correction Officer I. The plaintiff worked as a Correction Officer I at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution—Norfolk. His duties included conducting head counts and security checks, escorting and searching incarcerated individuals, responding to medical emergencies, screening visitors, and serving food. The court noted that the role was performed in person and required frequent direct physical contact with incarcerated individuals, colleagues, and members of the public.
Governor’s order. In September 2021, Governor Charlie Baker signed Executive Order 595, which required executive-department employees to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination by October 17, 2021. The order cited the FDA's approval of three vaccines and described vaccination as a proven measure for preventing hospitalization and severe disease. It also established a process for requesting religious or medical exemptions.
Religious exemption request, denial, and discharge. The officer, a practicing Catholic, requested a religious exemption on or about September 26, 2021. He explained that he understood the vaccines to have been tested or developed using cell lines derived from aborted fetuses, that benefiting from such a practice would violate his conscience, and that he had prayed over the decision. The DOC suspended him for five days on November 30, 2021, and for 10 more days on December 7, 2021, for failing to provide proof of vaccination. It terminated his employment on December 22, 2021.
Lawsuit. The officer sued in December 2024, asserting religious discrimination under Title VII and Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B (Count I) and a First Amendment claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Count II). A co-plaintiff's claims were resolved by settlement. After discovery, the DOC moved for summary judgment on both counts.
Title VII and Chapter 151B claims. The court treated the Title VII and Chapter 151B claims together, noting that the plaintiff identified no difference between the statutes affecting the analysis. It applied the First Circuit's two-part framework: the plaintiff must first make a prima facie showing that a bona fide religious practice conflicts with an employment requirement and was the reason for the adverse action, after which the employer must show that it offered a reasonable accommodation or that accommodation would have caused undue hardship. The court observed that other former DOC employees had brought materially identical claims in the district and lost, and that the officer did not attempt to distinguish those decisions.
The DOC argued that the officer had not established a sincere religious belief, pointing to the absence of support for his position in Catholic Church writings. The court declined to resolve that question, describing sincerity determinations as difficult and delicate. Because undue hardship was independently dispositive, it assumed sincerity without deciding it.
As to undue hardship, the court applied the standard articulated in Groff v. DeJoy, under which a burden is undue when it is substantial in the overall context of the employer's business. It found that the undisputed record satisfied that standard. Relying on prior decisions involving the DOC, the court concluded that accommodating the officer would have increased economic costs through lost staff hours and overtime and would have posed substantial health and safety risks to incarcerated individuals and coworkers. The court emphasized the in-person nature of the plaintiff's duties and the particular vulnerability of congregate settings such as prisons. It noted that the DOC's facilities recorded 6,182 COVID-19 cases among incarcerated individuals and 21 related deaths between March 2020 and December 2023. The parties also agreed that the vaccine requirement was a critical component of the DOC's efforts to deliver its services safely and that the DOC had a compelling interest in maintaining adequate staffing in a way that incarcerated individuals and staff could trust to keep them safe.
The officer argued that continued masking, distancing, and testing, the measures used before vaccines became available, would have been a reasonable accommodation. The court rejected that argument. By fall 2021, it reasoned, the DOC had determined that masking and frequent testing would not provide protection equivalent to vaccination, and other decisions in the district had held that such alternatives would themselves impose an undue hardship on the DOC given the elevated health risk in correctional settings.
The officer also disputed, point by point, the broader scientific consensus on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, relying on an expert report. The court held that this approach misconstrued the inquiry. Following the First Circuit's decision in Rodrique v. Hearst Communications Inc., 126 F.4th 85 (1st Cir. 2025), the relevant question is not whether the vaccines were in fact safe and effective, but whether the employer reasonably relied on the objective scientific information available to it when it concluded that vaccinated employees were less likely to transmit the virus. The court found the record "replete" with undisputed evidence of such reliance, including the executive order's express grounding in FDA approval, the Commonwealth's repeated references to CDC and state public health recommendations, and the Governor's determination that unvaccinated staff would create operational hardships. Recommendations from bodies such as the FDA, the CDC, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the court explained, constitute objective medical evidence of special weight and authority. Because that inquiry made the expert's opinions unnecessary, the court said it need not consider them.
First Amendment claim. As to Count II, the court first held that section 1983 foreclosed the claim. The DOC, a state agency and the sole defendant, is not a "person" subject to suit under the statute, and sovereign immunity bars such claims in federal court against states and their agencies.
The court then added that, even if the claim were construed as arising outside section 1983, it would fail for substantially the same reasons as the Title VII claim. The parties agreed that EO 595 and the DOC's implementing rules were facially neutral and generally applicable, so rational basis review applied. The officer did not dispute that the DOC had a legitimate interest in reducing the spread of COVID-19 among staff and incarcerated individuals; he argued only that vaccination was not rationally related to that goal. Relying on its undue hardship analysis, the court held there was no genuine dispute that, based on the objective medical data available to state officials, requiring vaccination was rationally related to that interest. Summary judgment was granted to the DOC on both counts.
The case is No. 1:24-cv-13163-BEM.
Judge: Murphy, B.
Attorneys: Richard Cullin Chambers, Jr. (Law Offices of Richard Cullin Chambers, Jr.) for Justin Banks and Joseph Schnupp. George Hassett, Office of the General Counsel, for Massachusetts Department of Corrections.