Court Dismisses Claims Against Harvard in Vaccine Refusal Lawsuit

A federal judge dismissed all claims against Fick & Marx client Harvard University brought by a Harvard Medical School instructor who claimed he was wrongly terminated for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Plaintiff James Wines, MD, sued Havard, claiming that he was wrongfully terminated from an unpaid, clinical faculty appointment at Harvard Medical School (“HMS”) that he held solely by virtue of his employment as a physician at Mass General Brigham Hospital (“MGB”), a HMS-affiliated hospital.

Unlike almost every other medical school in the United States, HMS does not own or operate its own teaching hospital. Rather, it maintains agreements with 15 “affiliated” hospitals in the Boston area through which HMS conducts its clinical training. Together, these affiliated hospitals employ more than 10,000 physicians and scientists, who are given faculty appointments at HMS.

These positions acknowledge the relationship between the physicians and researchers employed at these hospitals and HMS, which circulates its students through the hospitals for training.

The Complaint alleged that MGB (not HMS) terminated Wines after he refused a COVID-19 vaccine, which MGB (again, not HMS) required of its clinical care staff. Whether or\not these allegations are true — Harvard does not know, and Wines does not allege Harvard was involved — any possible remedy would lie against MGB, alone. But Wines already sued MGB unsuccessfully, and his claims were dismissed as a sanction for his failure to comply with discovery orders. 

Seeking another bite at the apple, Wines sued Harvard in a baseless attempt to hold Harvard responsible for his putative employment dispute with MGB. Wines’s claims against Harvard all fail because his unpaid, clinical faculty appointment with HMS ended automatically, once he ceased to be employed as a physician at MGB.

The Court explained, “[t]he facts alleged in the complaint … do not plausibly suggest that Harvard terminated Dr. Wines because of some common plan with MGB to impose a discriminatory vaccine policy. Rather, they overwhelmingly support an inference that Dr. Wines lost his HMS position because he lost his qualifying employment at an affiliated hospital.”

Law 360 covered the story and posted the District Court’s Opinion.