An Erlanger Health System nurse who refused to be vaccinated for COVID-19 while a federal mandate was in place has sued the hospital president in Federal Court.
The complaint by Rachel Clark against Will Jackson asks compensatory and punitive damages.
The vaccination order at Erlanger has since been rescinded based on Federal Court rulings.
The suit filed by attorney Charles Wright says the federal vaccination mandate was unconstitutional on its face. It says, "Defendant has no constitutional basis for making such order."
It includes a Dec. 1 letter to employees from Mr. Jackson saying the mandate order had been lifted, but urging them to comply anyway.
The letter says of the mandate to get the vaccine "to those of you who have not yet done so, I ask that you proceed as this will afford us the ability to ensure potential adherence in a confidential, timely and ordered way. I have to respectfully make clear that if the CMS Mandate is eventually upheld, failure to do one of these three actions may subject associates to mandatory leave and/or subsequent termination of employment at Erlanger."
The suit says Mr. Jackson "misrepresented to plaintiff and all other employees at Erlanger Hospital that he was as Chief Executive Officer of Erlanger Health System under a legal compulsion to fire them if they did not get vaccinated by December 5, 2021."
It says he "had highly competent legal counsel that would advise the defendant of the unconstitutionality under the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution of the efforts by the federal or state governments to force persons to have unwanted medical treatment. There are many other constitutional reasons why the CMS order was not valid. None the less Defendant acted like he was under legal compulsion when he was not. Defendant chose to not risk making Center for Medicare and Medicaid mad. By not complying with the unconstitutional order by CMS, he chose to keep peace with CMS to protect Erlanger Health System."
The suit says Ms. Jackson already had contracted COVID and thus had a natural immunity to it.