Like I keep telling you, this isn’t over by a long shot. Yesterday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Sambrano v. United Airlines, affirming class certification for United Airlines pilots and flight attendants who refused the jab on religious grounds and got “accommodated” right out of a paycheck. Corporate media has completelyignored this terrific story. You’re hearing it here first.

You may recall that, back during the pandemic panic, United Airlines was the most aggressiveairline in the country on vaccine mandates. Get the shot or get out. No ifs, ands, or spiritual buts. In all, 5,885 employees requested religious or medical accommodations, and —in a very cowardly fashion— 4,070 were technically “granted” and the employees were “accommodated.”

It was just rhetorical sleight of hand. Guess what “accommodated” meant?

Yep. You know. The Fifth Circuit’s opinion explained that United planned to place all exempted employees “on unpaid leave beginning on October 2, 2021, and ending whenever the ‘pandemic meaningfully receded.’” In other words: Sure, you can practice your faith. You just can’t practice your profession. Or eat. Eventually, United let non-customer-facing employees come back with masks and testing. But pilots and flight attendants stayed parked on the tarmac — 2,221 employees stranded on indefinite, unpaid leave.

According to United, “indefinite, unpaid leave” is nothing like being fired. True, you have no job, and no prospects of a job in the near future. And you got no paycheck or benefits. But you still had to follow company policy, like not defaming the company. Obviously, as everyone knows who was there, “unpaid leave” was a sham and a fraud, designed to force the employees to quit so United didn’t have to fire them.

The courageous pilots sued, alleging United “forced them to choose between taking the vaccine in violation of their faiths or at the expense of their health and their livelihoods.” The district court certified the class. United appealed. And yesterday, a three-judge panel — Judges Higginson, Willett, and Engelhardt — essentially said, Nice try, United. In legal language: “We AFFIRM.”

As one X commenter who identified herself as a United employee put it: “We are the largest class ever certified against a private employer for religious discrimination. Almost 2,000 were put on indefinite, unpaid leave or terminated.”

Now they all get discovery. Depositions. Damages. All the things corporate lawyers scare their clients about. And plaintiffs have been winning these cases all over the country. This is just the biggest one yet. It’ll be the most expensive.

Four years ago, United’s CEO bragged about having the toughest mandate in the airline industry and “leading the way.” Now his airline is leading the way into the largest religious discrimination class action ever certified against a private employer — in the jab-hostile Fifth Circuit, no less. It’s accountability. It’s consequences for treating employees’ religious beliefs and personal medical freedom like minor turbulence.