A former city employee in Seattle has initiated a lawsuit against the city, claiming wrongful termination, religious discrimination, and retaliation after he was dismissed for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, despite having received a religious exemption. The former employee is seeking either reinstatement or financial damages for lost wages, emotional distress, and other costs. He is also asking the court to declare the city’s civil service appeal process unconstitutional as it pertains to his case.
Brett J. Rogers, who previously served as a police officer with the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and as an operations manager for the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), alleges that the city violated his constitutional rights by denying him due process and failing to accommodate his religious beliefs. In his lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Rogers contends that Seattle’s handling of vaccine exemptions unfairly discriminated against employees with religious objections and that he faced retaliation after raising concerns about the process.
Having worked for the city for over 20 years, Rogers was granted a religious exemption from the vaccine mandate in October 2021 after submitting his request twice. However, instead of allowing him to continue working remotely, as he had been for several months, the city terminated his employment in April 2022. The lawsuit claims that the city routinely granted accommodations to employees with medical exemptions but denied similar support to those with religious exemptions. Rogers argues that the process used to evaluate exemption requests was flawed from the outset.
When he first applied for a religious exemption, the city provisionally denied his request without conducting follow-up discussions, despite a policy that he believed was intended to facilitate an interactive process. Rogers asserts that after he voiced his concerns about the exemption process, city officials retaliated against him. Following his complaints to then-Mayor Jenny Durkan and other officials in October 2021, he alleges that he was excluded from important meetings and decision-making roles.
He claims that his termination was part of a broader pattern of retaliation, stating that the city intentionally avoided reinstating him even after the vaccine mandate was lifted in early 2023. Rogers later discovered that his former position was posted for hire just days before the mandate was rescinded, yet he was never informed of this opportunity. When he inquired about returning to work, he was told that “separated employees are able to apply for open positions.”
In addition to claims of discrimination and retaliation, the lawsuit argues that Rogers’ termination violated his right to due process under the 14th Amendment. The complaint asserts that the Seattle Civil Service Commission (CSC) did not provide him with a meaningful appeal, instead referring his case to the Seattle Office for Civil Rights (SOCR).
Source: Seattle Medium
