{"id":1017,"date":"2023-12-18T17:37:31","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T21:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2025-07-18T12:35:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T16:35:53","slug":"hawaii-federal-court-denies-motion-to-certify-covid-19-vaccination-class-action-brought-under-title-vii-and-the-ada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/2023\/12\/18\/hawaii-federal-court-denies-motion-to-certify-covid-19-vaccination-class-action-brought-under-title-vii-and-the-ada\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii Federal Court Denies Motion To Certify Covid-19 Vaccination Class Action Brought Under Title VII And The ADA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>Duane Morris Takeaways:<\/em><\/strong> In O’Hailpin v. Hawaiian Airlines Inc., No. 22-CV-00532, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 220734 (D. Haw. Dec. 12, 2023), Judge Jill Otake of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii denied<\/a>\u00a0a motion for class certification brought by current and former employees of Hawaiian Airlines alleging discrimination under Title VII and the ADA against individuals who requested medical or religious accommodations from their employers\u2019 COVID-19 vaccination policy. The decision is pro-defendant and well worth a read in terms of strategies to oppose and prevent class certification of employment discrimination claims.<\/em><\/p>\n

Case Background<\/strong><\/p>\n

Riki O\u2019Hailpin, along with eight other named plaintiffs (\u201cPlaintiffs\u201d), brought a putative class action against Defendant Hawaiian Airlines Inc. (\u201cHawaiian\u201d), alleging that Hawaiian violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (\u201cTitle VII\u201d) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (\u201cADA\u201d) by discriminating against employees who requested medical or religious accommodations from Hawaiian\u2019s Covid-19 vaccination policy.\u00a0 In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, President Biden issued Executive Order No. 14042, a Federal Contractor Mandate that required certain employers to implement a mandatory vaccination policy.\u00a0 Under the Federal Contractor Mandate and related guidelines, Hawaiian was required to have its unvaccinated employees masked and socially distanced in the workplace; thus, any exemptions to the vaccine policy would need to comply with those masking and distancing requirements.\u00a0 Id<\/em>. at *3.\u00a0 Plaintiffs challenged Hawaiian\u2019s policy that required all employees \u201cto be vaccinated November 1, 2021 unless they had a reasonable accommodation for a disability as defined under the ADA or a sincerely held religious belief that conflicted with their ability to receive a Covid-19 vaccine.\u201d\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *3-4.<\/p>\n

Hawaiian received 568 reasonable accommodation requests related to the vaccine policy, including 496 for religious accommodations and 72 for medical exemptions.\u00a0 Id. <\/em>at *3.\u00a0 Hawaiian subsequently examined every work position and every work location to determine whether masking and distancing were feasible and concluded that, for a majority of the positions, they were not.\u00a0 Hawaiian also implemented a \u201cTransition Period Testing Program\u201d that provided a deadline for unvaccinated employees to test and a 12-month unpaid leave of absence for those who did not get vaccinated and were not granted an accommodation.\u00a0 Id. <\/em>at *6.\u00a0 The complaint alleged Hawaiian engaged in a \u201cpattern and practice of discrimination\u201d under Title VII and the ADA by denying medical and religious accommodation requests and that the Transition Period Testing Program was a pretext for denying accommodation requests.\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *17.\u00a0 Plaintiffs sought to represent all current and former Hawaiian employees whose religious and medical vaccine accommodation requests were denied under Hawaiian\u2019s vaccination policy, and proposed a primary class of the approximately 500 employees whose accommodation requests were denied as well as sub-classes, broken down by medical and religious requests, of individuals whose requests were either denied or rescinded by Hawaiian.\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *9.\u00a0 Plaintiffs moved for class certification under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.\u00a0 Id.<\/em><\/p>\n

Plaintiffs\u2019 Motion For Class Certification<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Court evaluated Plaintiffs\u2019 motion for class certification under Rule 23\u2019s requirements of numerosity, adequacy, predominance, typicality, and commonality.\u00a0 First, it expressed skepticism that one of Plaintiffs\u2019 proposed sub-classes satisfied the numerosity requirement.\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *12-13.\u00a0 The Court concluded that certification of a sub-class of 14 individuals \u201cwhose medical exemption requests were rescinded, such that no final decision was reached \u2026 could likely be denied based on numerosity grounds alone.\u201d \u00a0Id.<\/em> at *13.\u00a0 At the same time, the Court determined that Plaintiffs satisfied Rule 23\u2019s adequacy of counsel requirement.\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *13-14.\u00a0 Hawaiian did not contest the requirement with respect to the named Plaintiffs and their counsel.\u00a0 Id.<\/em> \u00a0at *14.<\/p>\n

The Court further evaluated whether Plaintiffs\u2019 \u201cpattern and practice\u201d theory of liability met Rule 23\u2019s commonality, typicality, and predominance requirements, with a specific focus on issues susceptible to \u201cgeneralized proof\u201d versus \u201cindividualized proof.\u201d\u00a0 Id. <\/em>at *20-21.\u00a0 The Court found that Plaintiffs could not satisfy the remaining Rule 23 requirements due to the individualized assessments into each medical and religious accommodation request to determine whether Hawaiian\u2019s treatment of each request constituted actionable discrimination under Title VII and the ADA.\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *23-57.<\/p>\n

With respect to the sub-classes of individuals who were denied religious accommodation requests, the Court noted that the inquiries into each employee\u2019s \u201csincerely held religious belief and secular preference\u201d and\/or whether the accommodation would cause an \u201cundue hardship\u201d to Hawaiian would require too many individualized assessments to satisfy predominance under Rule 23.\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *27–<\/strong>*42.\u00a0 For example, the Court noted the analysis of whether the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on Hawaiian would include an individualized review of each position, location, union status, and the ability to mask and social distance.\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *37-39.<\/p>\n

For the medical accommodation sub-classes, the Court noted that the ADA extends \u201conly to qualified individuals … who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the employment position that such individual holds or desires.\u201d\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *44 (quoting 42 U.S.C. \u00a7 12111(8)).\u00a0 For this reason, the Court opined that the reasonableness of the accommodation \u201cis necessarily individualized, based on the person’s position and location, and the extent to which an accommodation would amount to an undue hardship on Hawaiian.\u201d \u00a0Id.<\/em> at *52.\u00a0 In light of the individualized inquiries to determine the reasonableness of each accommodation (masking, social distancing, or testing) for each qualified individual, the Court determined that Plaintiffs did not meet their \u201cburden to explain why commonality, typicality, and predominance are met\u201d for the ADA subclasses.\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *55-56.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, the Court denied Plaintiffs\u2019 motion for class certification and held that a class action was not \u201cthe superior way\u201d for Plaintiffs\u2019 claims to proceed.\u00a0 Id.<\/em> at *56.<\/p>\n

Implications For Employers<\/strong><\/p>\n

This decision represents a helpful roadmap for employers to defend not only against potential Covid-19 vaccine-related class action complaints, but also against putative class actions brought under Title VII and the ADA.\u00a0 The Court\u2019s ruling underscores the importance of individualized inquiries for religious and medical accommodation requests under Title VII and the ADA, and offers tools to defend against the plaintiff\u2019s burden of demonstrating predominance, typicality, and commonality at the class certification stage of the litigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Duane Morris Takeaways: In O’Hailpin v. Hawaiian Airlines Inc., No. 22-CV-00532, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 220734 (D. Haw. Dec. 12, 2023), Judge Jill Otake of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii denied\u00a0a motion for class certification brought by current and former employees of Hawaiian Airlines alleging discrimination under Title VII and the … <\/p>\n

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