Rivera v. UCBR – 2-20-24 – Cmwlth. Court – reported decision (2-1 decision)
https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Commonwealth/out/1487CD22_2-20-24.pdf?cb=1
Majority:
Claimant did not have good cause for violating an employer policy, which required employees to get vaccinated or self-test weekly, absent medical grounds or a sincerely-held religious belief regarding vaccination and testing. Claimant provided maintenance and service inside the apartments in an 80-unit elderly housing complex.
Dissent:
This case presents an example of the concerns that I articulated in my dissent in Brown v. UCBR, 276 A.3d 322, 333 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2022), wherein I explained that the citizens of this Commonwealth have a protected common law right to exercise autonomy over their medical treatment and asserting that legal right should not amount to willful misconduct or serve as the basis for denying one unemployment compensation benefits.
As noted in my dissent in Brown, which I incorporate herein by reference, in Pennsylvania, courts have adopted the common law right to self-determination. Our Supreme Court has recognized this right and that it is the basis for the concept of informed consent. Shinal v. Toms, 162 A.3d 429, 452 (Pa. 2017) (“the right to be free from bodily invasion developed the doctrine of informed consent”). Specifically, and as also noted by the United States (U.S.) Supreme Court, “[n]o right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law.” Union Pacific Railway Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891). In Cruzan by Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, 497 U.S. 261, 269 (1990), then-Chief Justice Rehnquist stated that “[e]very human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body.”
