Eight former Redmond firefighters who lost their jobs after refusing Washington's 2021 COVID-19 vaccine mandate are taking their fight to a federal appeals court, arguing the city violated their religious rights when it denied them accommodations. Their lawyers filed an opening brief this month challenging a 2025 district-court ruling that sided with the city of Redmond.
The firefighters' lawsuit alleges that Redmond violated federal civil-rights laws prohibiting religious discrimination and retaliation, according to The Seattle Times. The eight are represented by lawyers now appealing to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after the lower court upheld Redmond's denial of accommodations that would have let the unvaccinated firefighters keep their roles. The city argued in court documents that allowing the firefighters to work with masks and testing instead of vaccinations would cause an undue hardship.
Firefighters Sought Religious Exemptions, Then Lost Them
The firefighters had sought vaccine exemptions for religious reasons and testified at City Council meetings opposing the mandate before it took effect. Several spoke before the Redmond City Council at its Oct. 5, 2021, meeting, as reported by KOMO News. Some firefighters said they had initially been granted provisional religious exemptions before Mayor Angela Birney reversed course and rescinded them, according to the same report.
Washington's 2021 mandate, issued through the governor's office, required firefighters, paramedics and EMTs working in health care settings to be vaccinated by an October 2021 deadline. The underlying state proclamation barred a worker from engaging in work for a state agency after Oct. 18, 2021, if the worker had not been fully vaccinated, per the Washington Governor's Office. Former Redmond firefighters who were not in compliance lost their jobs or went on leave once the mandate took effect.
No Jobs Waiting When Redmond Dropped the Mandate
Redmond eventually terminated two executive orders that had required firefighters and paramedics to be vaccinated. But the city's about-face did not mean a return to work for those who had been let go. Nine Redmond Fire Department employees left their jobs because of the mandate, according to city documents cited by the Eastside outlet's report on the policy reversal, and the city said former firefighters could apply for open positions regardless of vaccination status — but there were no open department positions at the time.
The vacancies left behind were not cheap to fill. As of Sept. 30, Redmond had spent $2.87 million in unbudgeted overtime costs covering the nine vacant positions, the report noted. Redmond's decision to drop its vaccination requirement echoed moves by King County and the city of Seattle, which also ended employee vaccination mandates, citing high booster uptake and lower levels of community spread at the time.
Part of a Broader Legal Pattern Among Washington Firefighters
The Redmond case is not an isolated dispute. Redmond firefighters are among multiple groups of Washington firefighters litigating COVID-19 vaccine requirements imposed by their employers, the Eastside paper's report states. The firefighters' attorneys are pressing their 9th Circuit appeal even as similar fights have played out elsewhere in the state's fire service.
Federal civil-rights law sets real limits on how far religious objections can go in these disputes. Under Title VII, employers must consider requests for religious accommodation, but the law does not protect social, political or economic views, or personal preferences, as grounds for an exception to a vaccination requirement, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Separately, Washington law bars employers from requiring workers to disclose sincerely held religious beliefs unless that disclosure is needed to provide an accommodation the employee requested, per Washington State Legislature statute.
Early Pandemic Responders Now Fighting in Court
The firefighters at the center of the appeal were among those who responded to the COVID-19 pandemic early on, assisting other departments with calls from Life Care Center of Kirkland, the site of the first confirmed COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, in early 2020. That history has become part of the backdrop to a legal fight over whether the same firefighters should have been granted exemptions from the mandate that followed roughly a year and a half later.
The city of Redmond declined to comment on the pending lawsuit. A related case offers a glimpse of how these disputes can end: the U.S. Supreme Court declined this month to hear a petition from eight former Snohomish Regional Fire & Rescue firefighters seeking to reverse an appeals court ruling against them, underscoring how difficult it has been for firefighters nationwide to overturn vaccine-mandate rulings in court.
