United Airlines workers in Fort Worth area sue over vaccine mandate, religious beliefs

Six United Airlines employees, five of whom live in Dallas-Fort Worth, claimed in a lawsuit filed Tuesday the airline is discriminating against them through the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The Chicago-based airline announced on Aug. 6 that all employees would be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine by Sept. 27. The airline told employees they could seek a religious or medical exemption to the mandate and, if approved, they would be placed on temporary leave beginning on Oct. 2. The six employees in the class action lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas-Fort Worth Division, were placed on unpaid leave after their exemption requests were granted, according to the lawsuit. Two of the employees requested medical accommodations and four asked for religious exemptions because they believe the COVID-19 vaccine was developed using aborted fetal tissue, the suit says.

The vaccines do not contain fetal tissue or fetal cells. Scientists used cells grown in labs over the past few decades to test and research the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and in development of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Those cells — called cell lines — originated from cells taken from aborted fetuses in the 1970s and 1980s. United Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. The plaintiffs in the federal suit are David Sambrano, a captain living in Tarrant County; David Castillo, an aircraft technician living in Tarrant County; Kimberly Hamilton, a station operations rep living in North Texas; Debra Jennefer Thal Jonas, a customer service rep living in North Texas; Genise Kincannon, a flight attendant living in Fort Worth; and Seth Turnbough, a captain living in Chicago who frequently flies through DFW Airport. Sambrano, Castillo, Hamilton and Kincannon asked to be exempt from the mandate because they believe vaccines “were derived using aborted fetal tissue” and “receiving the vaccine is contrary to the Bible’s teaching that her body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.”