After working for 26 years at AnMed Health hospital in Anderson, Pamela Crowe was placed in an intractable dilemma—whether to sacrifice her job, or get the same flu shot that she believed killed her young daughter nine years earlier. She chose not to get the flu shot, and the hospital fired her.
On May 22, the South Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that Crowe was at least entitled to unemployment benefits because her refusal to get the shot was reasonable under her circumstances.
In 2010, AnMed instituted a new policy that required all employees to get a flu shot unless they were granted an exemption. At the time, Crowe was a benefits coordinator who had no direct contact with patients. In 2001, her 19-year-old daughter Nicole had received a flu shot that led to numbness spreading through her body. Her neurologist first told the family Nicole had an ailment called Guillain–Barré syndrome, but later determined she had multiple sclerosis. He told Crowe that Nicole’s flu shot “very well could have activated” the condition. Nicole died in 2007 of complications from her ailment.
Crowe requested an exemption to the policy. She explained what happened to her daughter and provided a note from her doctor saying that she should not get a flu shot. AnMed denied the request and, pursuant to the policy, fired her.
Crowe filed for unemployment benefits, but a claims adjudicator initially found she was fired for cause and disqualified her. An appeals tribunal reversed that decision. AnMed appealed to an administrative law court, which upheld the ruling, prompting AnMed to take the case to the Court of Appeals.
The appeals court upheld the ruling, although on slightly different reasoning. The court said the issue in the case was “very narrow.”
“It is not whether AnMed’s policy is reasonable as it applies to other AnMed employees, or even whether AnMed acted reasonably in applying it to Crowe. It is not whether Guillain–Barré syndrome or multiple sclerosis are genetic disorders, or whether getting a flu shot can, in fact, cause someone to suffer from those diseases,” Chief Judge John C. Few wrote for a unanimous court. “The only question for the department to answer was whether Crowe’s refusal to comply with AnMed’s policy was reasonable under her unique circumstances.”
The appeals court vacated the portion of the ALC’s ruling that AnMed’s firing of Crowe was unreasonable. Deciding how to protect patients from life-threatening illnesses such as influenza is a complicated medical and scientific evaluation that should be made by hospitals, not the Department of Employment and Workforce or the ALC, the court said. However, that did not require the DEW to deny Crowe unemployment benefits because even if a policy is reasonable, courts also have to evaluate the employee’s reason for not complying with it.
AnMed argued Crowe’s subjective beliefs about the flu shot were incorrect and her doctor’s opinion wasn’t reliable. The court said those concerns were relevant to its decision but did not control it. Instead, the court focused on whether Crowe acted reasonably under her circumstances. Given her doctor’s warning and the experience of her daughter, it felt that she did.
Alexander Paterra of Paterra & Osmer in Greenville represented Crowe. Stuart Andrews Jr. and Gary Capps of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in Columbia represented AnMed.
The seven-page decision is AnMed Health v. SCDEW (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-075-13). The full text of the opinion is available online at sclawyersweekly.com.
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