A federal judge has declined to reconsider her dismissal of a Colorado Springs man’s lawsuit, involving his termination from a defense contracting company because he refused to abide by corporate COVID-19 protocols.

Michael S. Freeman II, representing himself in court, alleged Raytheon Technologies and multiple federal officials violated his rights by issuing and enforcing requirements for employees to either vaccinate against COVID-19 or test and wear masks before entering company facilities. Earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney dismissed his claims, finding Freeman’s allegations were insufficient to establish liability.

Freeman then asked Sweeney to overturn her ruling, accusing her and U.S. Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter of being “inept” and “fabricating” details. He asked both judges to recuse themselves and to have his case heard before a different judge.

“These unsubstantiated and unreasonable allegations,” responded Sweeney on June 28, “fall far short of the high bar required to establish bias or partiality on the part of the Court.”

Reached for comment, Freeman told Colorado Politics to “cease and desist” the “hit piece” against him.

“You have a narrative that you are going to push regardless of what I say or what the actual facts are about the vaccines,” he said.

Freeman was a schedule analyst manager for Collins Aerospace, which is a subsidiary of defense contractor Raytheon. His employer had a policy, initially required by the U.S. Department of Defense, requiring employees to either vaccinate against COVID-19 or test themselves and wear face masks in order to be in company facilities.

Freeman has a blood disorder and opted against vaccination due to safety concerns. However, he notified his supervisor in January 2022 that he refused to abide by the other elements of the policy. He was terminated shortly afterward.

In response, Freeman alleged he was subject to disability discrimination. He likened COVID-19 vaccination to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and claimed COVID-19 tests violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment because they are “so uncomfortable as to cross into the realm of painful.”

Neureiter, in his initial evaluation of the lawsuit, recommended in February that Freeman’s claims be dismissed. He called the complaint “unnecessarily long and peppered with irrelevant material” before noting Freeman had incorrectly brought his claims under federal laws banning race discrimination, but not disability discrimination.

Moreover, Neureiter noted, Freeman had filed claims against Raytheon and the departments of Defense and Health and Human Services, but not against the entity that actually terminated him.

“Instead, it was Collins Aerospace who hired Plaintiff, who promulgated and enforced the complained-of COVID policies, and who fired him when he refused to comply,” he wrote.

Sweeney adopted Neureiter’s recommendation weeks later, rejecting Freeman’s complaints about the magistrate judge’s “inadequate and shallow understanding” of his case.

Freeman then requested that Sweeney vacate her order and that the court assign his case to a new judge.

“Plaintiff has his theories on why this currently assigned Magistrate Judge and the District Court Judge work so hard to shield the Defendants, but he will not speculate publicly at this time,” Freeman wrote, calling them “attack dogs” for the defendants.

Sweeney responded that Freeman had not identified “any defect in the integrity of the proceedings.” She assured him that, even if she or Neureiter had not addressed all of his arguments, Freeman can still raise them on appeal. Otherwise, Sweeney, a former workers’ rights attorney appointed to the bench last year, was unpersuaded Freeman had identified any bias from the judges.

On July 11, Freeman submitted another set of allegations about the “overtly biased judiciary” and asked for his case to be transferred to a new set of judges in Colorado Springs. There are no district judges stationed in Colorado Springs.

Freeman declined to elaborate to Colorado Politics on his theory about why Sweeney and Neureiter “work so hard to shield” Raytheon and the government in his case. The original government directive requiring COVID-19 protocols for contractors, which Freeman relied upon for his claims against the federal officials, has been blocked by federal judges – and was blocked even before Freeman’s firing.

The case is Freeman v. Raytheon Technologies Corporation et al.