Brigette Eagan Offers Legal Insight for ROI-NJ Article "Shot in the Dark: Can Employers Mandate COVID Vaccines? And Should They?"

Brigette N. Eagan, Esq., Counsel in the firm's Employment Law & Litigation Practice, was recently interviewed by ROI-NJ for their article entitled, "Shot in the Dark: Can Employers Mandate COVID Vaccines? And Should They?" Ms. Eagan said, "employers are taking a wait-and-see approach. Partly, they’re hoping that the vaccine reluctance is less of an issue in several months than it’s considered to be right now."

Ms. Eagan continued saying, “Employers might feel like New Jersey, as one of the first states beaten down by this, will have employees go voluntarily in a third or fourth local spike of cases, because we’ve seen the impact of this from the beginning. Certainly, people are getting more comfortable with the idea of the vaccine.”

For employees who remain reluctant about receiving the vaccine, employers might have to continue with the precautions they’ve taken over the past year, including wearing masks in the workplace.

But, when even mask-wearing has become contentious, Eagan said there has been “reasonable accommodations” employers have made for employees there, too.

“What we’ve heard the most of is employees with asthma or other medical issues saying they can’t wear masks,” she said. “So, the question for those employers is whether there’s a way to accommodate that, and, generally, there is a way to handle it, such as face shields or scheduling employees where they won’t be in high-traffic areas.”

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