BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Santa Clara County has agreed to pay $192,783 to three employees who lost their jobs because they refused to take the Covid vaccine, court records show.
The employees want the county to pay another $2.1 million in attorney fees.
The county settled a lawsuit from the employees rather than going to a jury trial on Monday. The case was filed by nurses Maria Ramirez and Elizabeth Baluyut and air conditioning mechanic Tom Davis.
The employees said they were uncomfortable because vaccines were tested on fetal cells from abortions, and they believe abortion is murder.
“Some (employees) also have sincerely held religious beliefs, rooted in Scripture, that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and that they cannot place a pharmaceutical substance into their temples,” their lawsuit said.
Ramirez, Baluyut and Davis said they didn’t follow then-county chief health official Dr. Sara Cody’s August 2021 public health order that required up-to-date vaccinations for workers in high-risk settings like hospitals. Employees said the vaccine mandate was applied inconsistently — for example, unvaccinated jail guards worked with infected inmates.
Sheriff’s Lt. Adam Valle was scheduled to testify about his experience working in a high-risk job while unvaccinated.
The county offered religious and medical exemptions, but employees had to apply to completely different positions that were often demotions, the suit said.
Ramirez, Baluyut and Davis will split $120,000 and get paid for sick and vacation days they used after losing their jobs.
Their attorneys said they spent 3,309 hours on the lawsuit since Feb. 18, 2022.
The lawsuit was led by Rachele Byrd from the law firm Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP. Hourly rates for partners go up to $1,250 per hour, she said.
33 more employees are suing
Federal Judge Beth Freeman will consider the request for attorney fees at a hearing in San Jose on June 25.
The county is facing another federal lawsuit from 33 former employees — nurses, counselors, jail guards, receptionists and more — who have similar claims as the case that settled. They’re also in settlement talks with lawyers for county.
Freeman considered combining the cases in August but said the lawsuits involve different people and would interfere with the scheduled trial.
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