Victories, Big and Small | "Legal Earthquake": Federal Jury Awards $7.8 Million to 6 BART Former Employees

A massive victory for those who were wrongfully terminated for refusing the C-19 injection plus I share a huge personal victory at the end of this piece...

Greetings from London, where I have been knee-deep in a bunch of family stuff. I’m back in SF next week in time for all the election kerfuffle, although obviously with access to the internet, and an enduring fascination for the ridiculous, I haven’t escaped any of the theatre here.

In the meantime, I was delighted to hear this piece of excellent news today, as such a decision should hopefully positively impact many of my SF friends, not to mention others throughout the state or even country, who were fired from their jobs for the same in(s)ane reason.

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A San Francisco jury ruled in favor of six employees who were wrongfully terminated after failing to accommodate them based on their religious exemption requests, which were made in response to BART's COVID vaccine mandate.

Photo by Lance Anderson on Unsplash

A federal jury awarded the six ex-BART workers between $1.1 million and more than $1.5 million each, court records show.

The judgments were awarded Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The Pacific Justice Institute law firm, which represents the plaintiffs, said in a Thursday statement that BART failed to prove an “undue hardship in denying any accommodations to the employees” who sought them based on religious reasons.

Kevin Snider, who served as lead attorney, said the workers didn’t compromise their religious convictions for their jobs.

“The rail employees chose to lose their livelihood rather than deny their faith," he said in a statement. "That in itself shows the sincerity and depth of their convictions."

One of the plaintiffs had worked for BART for more than 30 years, including a decade-long stretch with perfect attendance, their legal team said.

Freedom lovers in California have been fighting for civil rights, workers' rights, religious rights, medical rights, and justice for over 4 years now and needed a big win. This is a huge victory since this is the first time a jury has awarded such a high amount in a vaccine-related employment discrimination case.

The jury was vaccinated and stated during voir dire that they disliked the unvaccinated. Voir dire is the process in which the judge and attorneys question potential jurors to assess their suitability for a particular case. This process aims to identify biases or conflicts of interest to ensure a fair and impartial jury. Attorneys on both sides can accept or reject jurors from a randomly selected jury pool, but after a certain number of rejections, they have no choice but to accept available jurors. So, these jurors were accepted even though they were not entirely neutral. (Judges give instructions to jurors to be fair and impartial, as their decisions can have a long-lasting impact on society.)

It’s great that the jurors were honest and that they did the right thing by upholding the rights of everyday Americans who stood in faith against forced medical treatments. These jurors showed the world what San Francisco is truly about: love, compassion, and justice for all.

This case and judgment will go down as one of the many David v. Goliath stories of this decade. Out of 35 or so plaintiffs against BART, most dropped out and accepted settlements along the way. Six heroes stood in faith against the ultra-corrupt and powerful BART, even though the previous jury was not favorable to the employees just a few months ago.

This article from the Pacific Justice Institute has more information:

Legal Earthquake: SF jury awards millions to workers denied religious accommodations.

There are over 200 plaintiffs  in over 35 lawsuits against the City and County of San Francisco. We pray that they, too, win against the City of San Francisco and set an even bigger precedent for the future generations to come. You can contribute to their most significant lawsuit against the City and County of San Francisco by clicking the button below.

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And now, a breakthrough of my own

*I had previously made this anecdote a footnote but really, it’s got to be the ending of this post, given how huge of a personal breakthrough it is.

Earlier today, my older sister who had spent most of Sunday at my Mum’s house (where I am staying) helping her cook some savoury treats for Diwali¹ told me she saw “something on TV the other day” a documentary² about three people who were severely vaccine-injured. Apparently, when that news segment came on, she and her husband looked at each other in silence. She said it was obvious what they were both thinking: suddenly the so-called crazy vaccine injury stories I had been telling them about since 2021 did not seem so crazy after all.

This is a huge step towards another member of my family waking up and I’ll take it. In any case, both my Mum — who is also against forced injections, and who also tried to get my sisters and their families to refuse them — and I were very pleased.

Now, here you can watch some mathiya being fried!

1. The Hindu Festival of Lights.

2. Actually my sister later clarified that it was a documentary, but she didn’t know the name as she didn’t see the beginning.