A Beth Israel employee who was fired after she refused to get the COVID vaccine has scored a win in federal appeals court.
Amanda Bazinet, who worked as an executive office manager at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Milton, sued the hospital when she was terminated over the vaccine mandate.
She had tried to get a religious accommodation for the COVID vaccine in 2021, which the hospital rejected and then sent her packing.
When Bazinet sued Beth Israel over religious discrimination, the federal district court dismissed the case. But now, the federal appeals court has tossed the district court’s ruling.
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“Whether Bazinet’s religious discrimination claims will succeed or even survive summary judgment is uncertain. But these claims should have advanced…” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit wrote in its ruling on Tuesday.
“Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s order dismissing Bazinet’s religious discrimination claims and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” the appeals court added.
The hospital’s mandatory vaccine policy had exemptions, including for medical and religious reasons.
When the lower district court dismissed the religious discrimination claims, the judge said Bazinet failed to allege that she maintained a “sincerely held religious belief” that prevented her from taking the COVID vaccine.
Also, the judge ruled that the hospital would “suffer an undue hardship” by granting Bazinet’s request for an accommodation from the vaccine requirement.
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“The complaint sufficiently alleged that taking the vaccine would violate Bazinet’s religious beliefs,” the appeals court wrote on Tuesday. “Moreover, determining whether an undue hardship would result from the Hospital excusing Bazinet from the vaccine requirement cannot be accomplished at this preliminary stage of the litigation.”
In her religious accommodation request, Bazinet noted her understanding that the available COVID vaccines were developed using fetal cell lines that originated from aborted fetuses. She also explained that taking the vaccine would make her complicit in the performance of abortions which would be “an aberration to (her) Christian faith.”
Bazinet provided quotations from religious sources that she said supports her view.
“Accepting those allegations as true for present purposes, she has sufficiently pleaded a religious belief that conflicts with receiving the COVID-19 vaccine as required by the Policy,” the appeals court wrote.
“Bazinet… grounded her objection to taking the vaccine in a religious belief connecting the COVID-19 vaccine to opposition to abortion,” the court later added. “Whether few or many share that religious view is irrelevant. For similar reasons, it is also irrelevant at this stage of the litigation that the Hospital tells us that Bazinet is mistaken in believing that the COVID-19 vaccines were developed from fetal tissue obtained from aborted fetuses. That the Hospital disputes Bazinet’s factual foundation for her belief about the development of the vaccines does not change the religious character of the belief.”
Massachusetts State Police are searching for Ashyley Vasquez after a potential child kidnapping of three youths. (Massachusetts State Police)
STOUGHTON, Mass. (WLNE) — Massachusetts State Police said that an Amber Alert for three children out of Stoughton was cancelled after they were found safe.
A view of a marina in Nantucket Island. Nantucket is home to the most expensive ZIP code in … [+] Massachusetts, where the median home value is over $2.772 million.
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Massachusetts stands among the top five states in the United States in terms of income, boasting a household income of $99,858 and a mean household income of $138,516, according to the Census Bureau. Affluence is a hallmark of many places in Massachusetts, both of regular suburbs and resort areas.
For this article, we wanted to breakdown the most expensive ZIP codes in Massachusetts. Vacation spots in Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Code, and the Berkshires not surprisingly are home to many of the most expensive ZIP codes. But so does the Boston metro area. Read on to find out the most expensive ZIP codes in Massachusetts in 2024, based on the latest data from Zillow’s home value index.
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The Most Expensive ZIP Codes in Massachusetts
Harnessing data from Zillow’s home value index, as well as the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey, we analyzed thousands of ZIP codes across the U.S. as part of a general survey. From there, we focused our attention on Massachusetts. The Zillow home value index tracks (as of September 2024) the home values of 484 ZIP codes in Massachusetts. As part of our analysis, we took into consideration the latest monthly home values Zillow has — September 2024 — as well as the average of 12 months of median home values from October 2023 to September 2024. While home values have grown immensely across America since the pandemic-induced buying frenzy, home value appreciation in Massachusetts stands out. One of the most expensive ZIP codes in Massachusetts witnessed home values surge by 84.8% over the last five years.
Some very clear patterns emerge from this analysis. The majority of the most expensive ZIP codes in Massachusetts are contained within just a couple of metropolitan areas. Below are the 25 most expensive ZIP codes in Massachusetts.
The Top 5 Most Expensive ZIP Codes in Massachusetts
ZIP code 02554 is the most expensive one in Massachusetts. This ZIP code covers the affluent island of Nantucket. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise considering Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard are well-known for attracting wealthy residents. The 12-month average home value is just over $2.7 million, while the median home value was over $2.77 million in September 2024. That is up an incredible 57.5% from five years before, when the median home value was roughly $1.76 million in September 2019.
Moving over to Nantucket’s neighbor, ZIP code 02535 covers the southwestern portion of Martha’s Vineyard. Incomes are high in ZIP code 02535, with the median household income being $135,750 and the average household income $223,352. Just over 29% of households in ZIP code 02535 earn $200,000 or more a year. Back in September 2019, the median home value was nearly $1.478 million, before rising by 58.8% over five years, reaching $2.346 million in September 2024. Notably, though, the median home value fell slightly, by 2%, from the previous September, when it was just under $2.395 million.
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The No. 3 most expensive ZIP code in Massachusetts is 02493, which is centered on Weston, a suburb west of Boston. Household incomes in ZIP code 02493 are much higher than those on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, believe it or not. The median household income in ZIP code 02493 is over $250,000 a year, while the mean household income is $365,202. The majority of households in 02493 earn $200,000 or more. Home value appreciation here has been robust. The median home value rose by 59.1%, from around $1.374 million in September 2019 to $2.186 million in September 2024.
South of the No. 3 most expensive ZIP code is the No. 4, ZIP code 02481. This ZIP code is centered on Wellesley, though actually wraps around the town, including places like Wellesley Farms, Wellesley Lower Falls, and Wellesley College itself. There are some serious high-earners in this ZIP code. The median household income is over $250,000, with the average household income topping $414,000 per year. Here’s another ZIP code where home values increased substantially. From a median of nearly $1.357 million in September 2019, the median home value increased by 53.1%, to reach $2.077 million. Indeed, it’s up 6.3% year-over-year.
The fifth most expensive ZIP code in Massachusetts is based on the village of Waban, which is part of the larger city of Newton: 02468. This is another western suburb of Boston. Like the other expensive suburban ZIP codes of Boston, incomes are very high in 02468. Incredibly, 71.3% of households in 02468 earn $200,000 or more. The median household income here is more than $250,000 per year; the mean household income is $382,509. Home values here rose by 45.3% in five years, not as large a growth rate as the other ZIP codes among our top five, yet still substantial. In September 2024, the median home value breached $2 million.
Three years into its anticipated seven-year timeline, construction is well underway on Massachusetts General Hospital’s massive new $1.9 billion clinical care facility on its Boston campus.
At over 1.5 million square feet, the Phillip and Susan Ragon Building will house the Mass General Cancer Center and the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center. Its two inpatient towers will contain 482 single-bed rooms, and the facility will include rooms for operations, imaging, infusions, and exams.
When the project along Cambridge Street broke ground in 2022, the hospital’s president David F. M. Brown called it “the most important” building constructed in the hospital’s history since its original building was constructed more than two centuries ago.
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“It will create the environment our staff need, and our patients deserve,” he said at the time.
At a recent celebration of the last beam being placed on the building’s East Tower, Jonathan Kraft, chair of the hospital’s board of trustees, said the building will be the “flagship building” of the hospital’s parent organization,Mass General Brigham.
“It will be the signature building of our system and the signature building of the whole health care community in New England,” he said.
The building will rely primarily on renewable electricity and has a net-zero carbon plan for construction and operation, MGH has said. It will potentially house a new T stop on the proposed Red-Blue connector, according to the hospital’s website. Construction is set to be completed in two phases, in 2027 and 2030.
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Construction continued on Massachusetts General Hospital’s $1.9 billion Phillip and Susan Ragon Building.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
The state-of-the-art building along Cambridge Street will house the Mass General Cancer Center and the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
The project’s two inpatient towers will contain 482 single-bed rooms, and the facility will include rooms for operations, imaging, infusions, and exams.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Stella Tannenbaum can be reached at stella.tannenbaum@globe.com.
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