Can you be fired for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine? America is about to find out
Andrew Keshner
Christopher Neve had a spotless record and several pay raises in his six years as a deputy sheriff with the Durham County Sheriff’s Office.
In March, he was put on leave without pay for insubordination and then terminated, court and personnel records show.
This happened because Neve, 33, refused to get vaccinated, according to his North Carolina federal lawsuit filed in April.
Christopher Neve, as a deputy sheriff with the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, could take the vaccine against his will or risk job loss, potential career consequences, a federal lawsuit alleges. —
Months earlier, Durham County’s Sheriff Clarence Birkhead sent a staff memo, the lawsuit said. “Getting vaccinated now will help protect you and the public we serve …I am requiring all employees to be vaccinated. It is mandatory,” an excerpt from the memo said.
That put Neve in an impossible situation, his attorneys alleged. He could either take the vaccine against his will or risk job loss, potential career consequences “and having his life upended.”
Neve “stood by his informed medical decision to not take an experimental product and, as a result, was illegally fired,” the lawsuit alleged.
The day he was put on leave, Neve had to turn over his badge and gun, and “humiliated” with an escort out of the office, the lawsuit said.
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