Detroit Jury Awards $12.7 Million to Blue Cross IT Worker Fired Over Vaccine Religious Exemption

Lisa Domski had worked in information technology at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for nearly 38 years. By 2021 she did the job entirely from home, with no in-person contact with coworkers. When the insurer rolled out a COVID-19 vaccine requirement that year, she asked for a religious exemption. A practicing Catholic, she objected that the available vaccines had been developed or tested using fetal cell lines derived from abortion. In her written request she said taking the shot "would be a terrible sin and distance my relationship with God."

Blue Cross denied the request and fired her on January 5, 2022. In court the company argued that her belief was not sincerely held and that the exemption was a cover for a personal choice not to vaccinate. Domski, who had built her entire career at the insurer, lost the position she had held for most of her adult life.

She hired Jonathan Marko of Marko Law, who took the case to trial in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit alongside co-counsel Noah Hurwitz of Hurwitz Law. Marko told jurors that Domski posed no health risk to anyone because she worked from home and had no reason to be on site. "She wasn't a danger to anybody," he said. The jury rejected the company's claim that her faith-based objection was insincere.

After about five and a half hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict for Domski on November 8, 2024. It awarded roughly $1.7 million in back and front pay, $1 million for emotional harm, and $10 million in punitive damages, for a total of about $12.7 million. Blue Cross said it was disappointed and was reviewing its legal options.

The punitive figure will not stand at $10 million. Under Title VII, punitive damages against a large employer are capped at $300,000, and Domski's own attorneys acknowledged that the cap applies. U.S. District Judge David Lawson heard arguments in January 2025 on cutting the punitive award down to that statutory limit.

Blue Cross initially moved to overturn the verdict, then abandoned that effort, filing a stipulation on April 28, 2025 to end its bid to throw out the jury's finding. The two sides also entered mediation aimed at resolving a wider group of more than 100 similar lawsuits from workers the insurer fired over the same mandate. Marko Law said it represented about 170 of the affected employees.