Fired MGM Grand Detroit Casino Worker Wins Court Victory Over COVID-19 Vax Refusal

Posted on: January 17, 2025, 12:02h. 

Last updated on: January 17, 2025, 12:19h.

An employee at MGM Grand Detroit who was terminated for not complying with the casino’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate has won a major court victory.

MGM Grand Detroit COVID-19 vaccinations
MGM Grand Detroit has been ordered to pay a former employee $133K for wrongly firing him. A federal jury said his religious convictions in refusing to receive COVID-19 vaccines should have been honored. (Image: Pure Michigan)

On Thursday, a federal jury in Michigan’s Eastern US District Court sided with plaintiff Hratch Yeremian, 56, on his allegations that he was wrongly terminated for not receiving a COVID-19 vaccination. In his federal complaint filed in December 2022, Yeremian claimed his religious convictions prevented him from receiving the Moderna or Pfizer shots.

Yeremian had worked at the downtown Detroit casino operated by MGM Resorts International since 1999. He was a casino pit manager for nearly 20 years before becoming the resort’s warehouse manager in May 2019.

After refusing to receive COVID-19 vaccines, Yeremian was let go in October 2021. The federal jury agreed with Yeremian that he was wrongly terminated. They awarded him $33K in backpay and $100K in damages.

Yeremian found new employment in April 2022 with Hollywood Casino at Greektown where he works as table games shift manager. 

Unlawful Firing

In August 2021, MGM Resorts CEO Bill Hornbuckle announced a COVID-19 vaccine policy for “all salaried employees and new hires” not bound by union contracts.

We know that COVID-19 vaccines are the best way to protect people from this deadly virus,” Hornbuckle wrote to impacted employees. “I know that for some of you this may be an unwelcome development — a consideration that we do not take lightly. However, as one of the largest and most trusted operators and employers in our industry, MGM Resorts is determined to do our part to curb the spread of the virus and help counter alarming trends in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.”

Yeremian sought an exemption because he believed the development of the vaccines went against his Catholic faith. He took issue with the vaccines reportedly being developed in aborted human fetal cell lines.

I discovered that all of the available COVID-19 vaccines have been produced or validated with the aid of aborted fetal tissues, which goes against my religious convictions,” Yeremian wrote his employer in seeking an exemption. “My faith also requires me to treat my body as a temple, and as such, being coerced to inject a substance that hasn’t yet undergone multi-year control group testing represents a potential danger to my spiritual and emotional wellbeing.”

The jury ruled that Yeremian had a “sincerely held religious belief” regarding the vaccines and MGM discriminated against those beliefs by firing him after he refused to receive the injections.

Union Workers Need Not Jab

Casino workers with union contracts, which cover about eight in 10 employees at MGM Grand Detroit, couldn’t be forced to receive COVID-19 vaccines without their collective bargaining agreements being renegotiated. The National Labor Relations Act prohibits employers from forcing new conditions on union staff members without reaching updated terms with their trade group.

MGM Grand Detroit’s casino floor measures 147K square feet and has almost 2,500 slot machines and 139 live dealer table games. MGM employs roughly 1,700 people at the Detroit resort, which is the top-grossing facility in the city’s three-casino market.

In 2024, MGM Grand Detroit generated gross gaming revenue of more than $603.7 million from in-person play. MotorCity was next at $385.9 million and Greentown was third at $292.9 million.