Case hinges on effectiveness of the vaccines.
A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit challenging the COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed by the Los Angeles school district, noting that the record doesn’t clearly show whether the vaccines prevent transmission of the illness.
The Health Freedom Defense Fund and other challengers to the mandate asserted that it violated the due process and equal protection rights of district employees, in part because the vaccines, unlike traditional vaccines, “are not effective” in preventing infection.
U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer disagreed, throwing out the case in 2022. She ruled that even if the COVID-19 vaccines don’t prevent infection, mandates can be imposed under a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling because the vaccines reduce symptoms and prevent severe disease and death.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on June 7 reversed that ruling, finding that Judge Fischer extended the 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts ruling “beyond its public health rationale—government’s power to mandate prophylactic measures aimed at preventing the recipient from spreading disease to others—to also govern ‘forced medical treatment’ for the recipient’s benefit.”
U.S. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson, writing for the 2–1 majority, added, “At this stage, we must accept plaintiffs’ allegations that the vaccine does not prevent the spread of COVID-19 as true. And, because of this, Jacobson does not apply.” That position was reached after lawyers for the defendants provided facts about the vaccines that “do not contradict plaintiffs’ allegations.”
Lawyers for the district had pointed out that a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publication describes the COVID-19 vaccines as “safe and effective” although the publication doesn’t detail effectiveness against transmission.
The majority also concluded that the case isn’t moot even after the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in 2023 rescinded the mandate.
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