By Hannah Edelman
The Bellingham Herald
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — A federal appeals court has affirmed that the firing of Bellingham city employees for refusing to comply with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate was in compliance with the U.S. Constitution.
Eighteen former employees filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Bellingham and former Mayor Seth Fleetwood in June 2024 over Fleetwood’s 2021 executive order requiring city employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
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The employees, which included EMTs, police officers, firefighters, a senior inspector and a wastewater collections supervisor, were all fired for failing to comply with the vaccine mandate. Their lawsuit called the policy unlawful, arbitrary and a “reckless, willful and wanton disregard for plaintiffs’ rights, safety and health.”
The lawsuit claimed that the COVID-19 vaccines were “neither safe nor effective,” and the plaintiffs had a “fundamental right to refuse investigational drugs without penalty or pressure.”
The plaintiffs alleged that the city deprived them of the option to refuse and their rights to due process, equal protection and privacy. They also claimed wrongful termination and intentional infliction of emotional distress and requested punitive damages.
Bellingham refuted the allegations, challenging the notion that the COVID-19 vaccine was an “investigational drug” and outlining what the city sees as failures by the other claims to meet legal standards.
The district court dismissed the case with prejudice in January 2025, and the plaintiffs filed an appeal the following month in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
A court panel found that the case was suitable for a decision without oral argument. On May 26, two circuit judges upheld the district court’s ruling, dismissing the case.
A similar lawsuit was brought against the city of Bellingham and its police department in Whatcom County Superior Court in 2022. The plaintiffs were two former BPD officers who were fired in late 2021 after the department approved their requests for religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate but allegedly denied them reasonable accommodations to continue to work there while unvaccinated.
The former officers claimed that this denial was discriminatory and violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The city argued that keeping the officers employed while unvaccinated would create an undue hardship, which exempts employers from needing to provide reasonable accommodations.
A judge ultimately sided with the city of Bellingham and dismissed the case without prejudice in March. It has not been appealed.
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