Former Anchor is Suing Scripps Station
A former Anchor and an account executive at WXMI (Grand Rapids) have filed a lawsuit against the company after they said they were fired for refusing to get the COVID vaccine.
Morning News anchor Deanna Falzone says she was fired back in December of 2021 because she refused to comply with the parent company’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy.
Sales account executive David Price said he was let go, despite asking for a religious exemptions to vaccination policy.
Price opposed the vaccine, citing, in part, the use of cell lines from fetuses aborted decades ago. Pfizer and Moderna used a cell line in confirmatory testing which the Vatican said was morally acceptable.
Falzone did not cite the fetus cell lines in her portion of the lawsuit but did claim a religious exemption.
“Employees who submitted religious accommodation requests were made to overcome a presumption against the sincerity of their beliefs when sincerity should have been presumed,” attorney Noah Hurwitz wrote in the lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.
“Plaintiff Falzone faced a crisis of conscience,” the lawsuit also says. “The dilemma of following her faith and risking financial burden for her family or succumbing to external pressure weighed heavily on her.
“Plaintiff Falzone chose her faith and was terminated, despite having worked to become a broadcaster since high school and her identity being inextricably tied to her career,” the lawsuit adds.
Michael Perry, Scripps’ senior director, external communications, said in a statement to MLive/The Grand Rapids Press:
“We can’t talk specifically about any individual. It is accurate that last September, Scripps implemented a vaccination requirement for all employees by Dec. 1, 2021. Employees had the option to go through an accommodation process. A review team carefully and thoughtfully went through all applications for exemptions, some of which were accepted and some of which were denied. No employee was terminated for applying for an exemption.”