A recent settlement between Barrington Public Schools and three former teachers who were fired for refusing to get COVID-19 vaccinations will likely have little impact on other businesses and organizations in Rhode Island who terminated workers for refusing to get vaccinated during the pandemic, legal observers say.
That’s because an R.I. Superior Court ruling, issued a year ago by Associate Justice Jeffrey A. Lanphear pertaining to a lawsuit filed by the three teachers, concluded that the Barrington School Committee violated the state’s Open Meetings Act, but Lanphear did not rule on whether the district had a right to require COVID-19 vaccinations for employees.
“This case is not about whether mandating vaccinations is appropriate,” Lanphear wrote in his decision. “Regardless of the significant political stance which the public may take for or against that issue, the issue here is whether the Barrington School Committee provided sufficient notice” before enacting the vaccination requirement at the beginning of the 2021 school year.
In early May, the school district reached a settlement with the teachers that paid each $33,333, plus back pay ranging from $65,000 to $150,000.
Michael J. Yelnosky, a law professor at Roger Williams University School of Law, doesn’t believe that Barrington’s concern over the legalities of vaccine mandates led to the settlement, but rather the ruling on the Open Meetings Act violation.
“It’s certainly hard to imagine they settled this case this generously without thinking they had some pretty serious legal exposure,” Yelnosky said.
And he added, “One impact of the fact that it’s a settlement, rather than a judicial resolution, is that it doesn’t have much precedential value.”
At Lifespan Corp., the state’s largest hospital group that had a vaccination requirement set by state health officials, the leadership shrugged off the news that the legal dispute in Barrington had been settled out of court.
“Lifespan does not expect this settlement to have any impact on its application of the R.I. Department of Health’s regulations, which required all health care workers, except those meeting a very narrow medical exception, to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 1, 2021,” Lifespan spokesperson Kathleen Hart said in a statement.
Lifespan said in 2021 that it had lost 200 employees because they refused to comply with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The second-largest hospital group, Care New England Health System, also let go of some of its workers for the same reason, but it wasn't immediately clear how many. It also isn't clear how many hospital workers have returned to their jobs now that the worst of the pandemic has passed.
In January 2022, the administration of then-Mayor Jorge O. Elorza updated the city's COVID-19 vaccination policy, requiring all employees to provide proof of vaccination. The change touched off worries that police officers and other city workers would be fired en masse.
That never happened, but it's unclear how many, if any, were let go for refusing the vaccine. The office of Mayor Brett P. Smiley did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
According to court documents in the Barrington teachers’ lawsuit, August and September 2021 Barrington School Committee policy subcommittee agendas and meeting minutes reference discussions of COVID-19 policies but did not specify that discussions around vaccination would take place.
Under Rhode Island meeting laws, public bodies must provide at least 48 hours' notice for all meetings, in addition to “a statement specifying the nature of the business to be discussed." The Barrington School Committee failed to meet the latter requirement, Lanphear wrote.
“Although there were numerous separate postings on the Secretary of State's website, one for each of the Barrington School Committee meetings, the postings never mentioned mandatory vaccinations,” Lanphear stated. “The detailed seven-page policy itself, was never posted.”
While the settlement, announced last week, won’t have an impact on employees outside of the district, it gives the three teachers, who were terminated in January 2022 after refusing COVID-19 vaccination, the option of taking their jobs back and $33,333 each. They will also receive back pay that amounts to $65,000 for Stephanie Hines, $128,000 for Kerri Thurber and $150,000 for Brittany DiOrio.
In a statement, the Barrington School Committee said that it “was navigating an unprecedented health pandemic and leaned on the important recommendations by the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and the R.I. Department of Health to ensure the safety of our students and school community” when deciding on its vaccination policy.
“Our then-policy helped combat the pressing public health crisis of the time while keeping schools open, and one that nearly all faculty and staff adhered to,” the committee continued.
The committee said it decided to settle with the teachers in the interest of the district.
The settlement terms likely gave the teachers what they’d want from a trial, Yelnosky said. At the same time, the lawsuit would no longer tie up the resources of the Barrington schools, he added.
“Barrington’s public statement makes perfect sense, in that, you want to settle cases that take up a lot of time, energy and money,” he said.
