Former Insurance Employee Awarded Nearly $700,000 After Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate
Former Tennessee BlueCross BlueShield employee, Tanja Benton, was awarded nearly $700,000 in backpay and damages by a grand jury after she refused to take the company’s mandated COVID-19 vaccine, court filings show. | A federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee found last week the insurance company owes Benton $687,240 after she was let go from her position as a biostatistical research scientist. ● According to the judge’s filing, BlueCross BlueShield “did not prove by a preponderance of the evidence either that it had offered a reasonable accommodation to Plaintiff or that it could not reasonably accommodate the Plaintiff’s religious beliefs without undue hardship.” ● Benton had worked at the insurance company from 2005 till 2022 prior to the company rolling out the vaccine mandates during the pandemic, according to the Washington Examiner. As the former insurance employee had worked remotely without complaint for a year and a half, she detailed within her case that her position not only didn’t interact face to face with many people, but she only had a client list of 10 to 12 people each year, News Channel 9 reported.