Beth Boyd v. Shriners Hospitals for Children

── Beth Boyd v. Shriners Hospitals for Children ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Date: April 14, 2026 Category: General NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _______________ No. 25-1183 _______________ BETH BOYD; JANET NOLAND; MICHELLE PECK; CARLY ROBSON, Appellants v. SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN; SHRINERS HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN–ERIE; BEVERLY BOKOVITZ; FRANCES FARLEY; JERRY GANTT; JOHN MCCABE; PHILLIP GRADY; MARY ANTOON _______________ On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (D.C. No. 1:23-cv-00342) District Judge: Hon. Cathy Bissoon _______________ Submitted under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) November 4, 2025 Before: KRAUSE, PHIPPS, and ROTH, Circuit Judges (Filed: April 14, 2026) _______________ OPINION * _______________ * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. ROTH, Circuit Judge. In 2021, Shriners Hospital (Shriners) in Erie, Pennsylvania fired a group of former employees (the Former Employees) for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine despite being required to do so. The Former Employees sued Shriners, claiming their dismissals violated a myriad of constitutional and statutory rights. The District Court dismissed their case with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, a decision the Former Employees now appeal. We will affirm the District Court’s dismissal for the reasons stated below. I. In December 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization for a vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech (the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine). The Pfizer- BioNTech EUA vaccine was not fully approved by the FDA; nevertheless, the agency allowed the vaccine to be distributed to individuals 16 and older because an international study of 37,000 participants found it to be 95 percent effective in preventing COVID-19. In August 2021, the FDA reissued the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer- BioNTech EUA vaccine and fully approved its functional equivalent with an identical formulation, known as the Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine. 1 1 The Former Employees repeatedly refer to publicly available COVID-19 vaccines, such as the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine, as “investigational drugs” because they did not receive full approval and instead received an emergency use authorization. See, e.g., Appellants’ Br. 9. Multiple federal courts, however, have held that the Comirnaty vaccine, which was fully approved by the FDA, is the functional equivalent of the Pfizer- BioNTech EUA vaccine. See e.g., Johnson v. Brown, 567 F. Supp. 3d 1230, 1241 (D. 2  Following the approval of the Comirnaty vaccine, Shriners, in September 2021, instituted a vaccine policy requiring certain employees, such as medical professionals who work with patients and employees who enter hospital buildings, to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of the year. Employees were permitted to apply for exemptions from the vaccine requirement if medical or religious reasons prevented them from taking the vaccine. The Former Employees, who were subject to the mandate, all refused to take the vaccine and did not seek a medical