Dave Ramsey Fired Employee for Taking Covid Precautions, Suit Says

The vigor broadcaster and anti-debt crusader Dave Ramsey has been accused of firing an worker for wearing masks astatine the bureau and for wanting to enactment from location during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a national suit filed this week.

The suit said that Mr. Ramsey, an evangelical Christian and the proprietor of Ramsey Solutions, a idiosyncratic concern proposal empire that helium started successful 1992, ran a “cultlike” situation wherever employees who disquieted astir the pandemic were accused of “weakness of spirit” and told to commune if they wanted to ward disconnected the virus.

The ailment was filed successful U.S. District Court successful Tennessee connected Monday by Brad Amos, a erstwhile worker astatine the company, which is based adjacent Nashville. A lawyer for Mr. Ramsey said the lawsuit was without merit and that the institution has followed guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention passim the pandemic.

Mr. Amos, 45, said helium was hired successful 2019 arsenic a elder video exertion making $90,000 a year, past was fired successful July 2020, aft repeatedly telling his supervisors that helium wanted to enactment from location to support the wellness of his woman and son, successful accordance with his ain Christian beliefs.

Mr. Ramsey’s institution “terminated Plaintiff for taking scientifically prescribed precautions, arsenic required by his sincerely held spiritual beliefs, successful the Covid pandemic alternatively than relying connected supplication unsocial to support himself,” the suit stated.

“Employees who wore masks to meetings were mocked and derided,” according to the lawsuit.

Daniel Cortez, wide counsel for Ramsey Solutions, described Mr. Amos’s claims arsenic “outlandish” and said they had “absolutely nary merit.”

“The institution has ne'er looked down upon individuals who chose to either deterioration masks oregon go vaccinated,” Mr. Cortez said connected Tuesday. He said helium himself is vaccinated and regularly wears masks to the office. “It’s precise unfortunate that Mr. Amos has filed this suit successful national court, but we are precise assured that we volition prevail.”

He said that Mr. Amos was fired aft helium insulted a supervisor who had called a gathering with him to sermon his work, which had begun to suffer. Mr. Cortez said that Mr. Amos had told the supervisor that helium was “arrogant and not humble.”

“That is simply a implicit and utter lie,” said Mr. Amos’s lawyer, Jonathan Street. “It’s an excuse they’re utilizing due to the fact that helium wouldn’t buss Dave Ramsey’s feet.”

Mr. Ramsey, who preaches that radical tin go millionaires by surviving simply and spending thriftily, has a play assemblage of astir 23 cardinal radical done his podcasts and vigor and online presence, according to Ramsey Solutions.

His advice, which helium besides describes successful his best-selling books and successful a nine-week people called Financial Peace University, is steeped successful an ethos that paying disconnected indebtedness and redeeming wealth is some communal consciousness and ordained by God.

But much precocious helium has go known arsenic a professional of restrictions intended to dilatory the dispersed of the coronavirus, which has killed astir 800,000 Americans since aboriginal 2020.

Early successful the pandemic, Mr. Ramsey, whose institution employs much than 1,000 people, decried the shutdown and said “lives were being harmed more” by specified restrictions “than by the existent virus.”

In December 2020, his institution threw a large, indoor Christmas enactment wherever employees were not required to deterioration masks, according to the Religious News Service, which also reported the filing of Mr. Amos’s lawsuit.

On his show, Mr. Ramsey has advised radical who did not privation to get vaccinated and were present facing termination to discontinue their jobs and said that “only the large companies that are optics concerned” were enacting “stupid” policies.

According to his lawyer, Mr. Amos moved his household from California to Tennessee to enactment for Ramsey Solutions. He liked the doctrine Mr. Ramsey espoused and wanted to unrecorded successful Williamson County, which has a ample blimpish and Christian presence, Mr. Street said.

After the pandemic hit, Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee issued a connection that “strongly” discouraged gatherings of 250 radical oregon more, according to the lawsuit.

On March 15, 2020, Mr. Ramsey emailed employees to archer them determination had been a confirmed lawsuit of Covid-19 successful the office.

That worker worked successful Mr. Amos’s department, according to the lawsuit. The pursuing day, employees were told they had to be an “on-site” meeting, wherever Mr. Ramsey announced that the institution would not let radical to enactment from home, the ailment stated.

“Specifically successful this 900-person meeting,” the ailment said, “Mr. Ramsey stated that fearfulness of moving successful the bureau due to the fact that of Covid demonstrated ‘weakness of spirit.’”

Mr. Amos told his supervisor helium was disquieted astir putting his woman and lad astatine risk. His son, who was past 6, has Coats disease, a uncommon upset that causes an abnormal improvement of humor vessels successful the retina, and his woman has a “predisposition for pneumonia,” according to the lawsuit.

Mr. Amos’s supervisor replied that helium should “pray and support moving forward,” the suit stated.

The institution yet allowed radical to enactment from home, but called Mr. Amos backmost into the bureau due to the fact that helium was deemed “an indispensable employee,” according to the complaint.

When Mr. Amos resisted, helium said helium was demoted from elder video exertion to adjunct video editor.

The suit said that Mr. Amos was besides ordered to be meetings “designed to indoctrinate Plaintiff to the idiosyncratic spiritual views of Dave Ramsey arsenic a spiritual leader.”

In July, Mr. Amos was called into different gathering with his supervisor, who criticized him for lasting isolated from different employees astatine the office.

He was told that helium “was not a bully fit” and was perceived to person a “lack of humility,” the suit stated.

After helium was fired, Mr. Amos moved backmost to California, Mr. Street said. He recovered different occupation successful the video editing industry, Mr. Street said.

A trailer that Mr. Street said Mr. Amos edited for “Borrowed Future,” a documentary astir pupil indebtedness produced by Ramsey Solutions, was inactive connected the company’s website connected Tuesday.