The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a Bellevue firefighter who sought a religious accommodation from Washington state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The decision issued today (May 27, 2026), affirmed summary judgment in favor of the City of Bellevue in a suit brought by Firefighter/EMT Justin Jobes.  

The case arose after Washington Governor Jay Inslee issued Proclamation 21-14 in 2021 requiring healthcare providers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by October 18, 2021. According to the complaint, Firefighter/EMT Jobes requested a religious accommodation, asserting that his sincerely held religious beliefs prohibited him from taking the vaccine.  

The City denied the request. Firefighter/EMT Jobes later filed suit alleging religious discrimination and failure to accommodate under Title VII and Washington law.  The district court granted summary judgment to the City in September 2024, dismissing the claims with prejudice.  

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit focused on whether the City made reasonable efforts to accommodate Firefighter/EMT Jobes’ religious beliefs. The court explained that once an employee establishes a prima facie Title VII claim, an employer may prevail if it can “show that it initiated good faith efforts to accommodate reasonably the employee’s religious practices or that it could not reasonably accommodate the employee without undue hardship.”  

Quoting from the ruling,

• The City offered Jobes several reasonable accommodations. First, the City offered Jobes a utilities position,  which Jobes rejected. Jobes requested paid medical leave paid medical leave for stress related to the vaccine mandate, and the City granted it to him for five months.
• When Jobes’ medical leave was set to end, the City offered him three other potential positions-as an Emergency Management Coordinator, as an LTE Grants Coordinator, and as a Fire Prevention Program Analyst.
• None of these jobs required contact with patients, and the Fire Prevention position allowed Jobes to remain within the City’s Fire Department. Jobes refused these accommodations.
• The City contacted Jobes subsequently and offered him a Fire Prevention Officer position within the Fire Department. Jobes declined thisaccommodation as well.
• And after Jobes voluntarily resigned and the vaccine mandate was lifted, the City later contacted Jobes through one of its Fire Chiefs and advised him there was a pathway for him to return to his old job as a Firefighter/EMT. Jobes declined this final offer as well.
• The record shows that the City repeatedly offered reasonable accommodations to Jobes which he repeatedly declined.
• As such, the City carried its burden on the affirmative defense, and the district court did not err in granting summary judgment.

The court also concluded that under its earlier decision in Petersen v. Snohomish Regional Fire & Rescue, (which we covered here) the City would have prevailed on its undue hardship defense as well.  

Here is the original complaint, Also below is the written order of summary judgment mentioned in the decision.