Case updates this week:

July 16, 2024: In Ronald Brown v. Cook County Auditor’s Office, Plaintiff Ronald Brown brought suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against his former employer, the Cook County Auditor’s Office of The North District of Illinois for denying his request for a religious exemption from the Auditor’s Office’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy. Plaintiff, an African American Baptist pastor, had been working at the Auditor’s office since 2008. When the Auditor’s Office established its mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy in August 2021, Brown submitted a request for a religious accommodation stating that “the new law conflicts with [his] personal health care philosophy, religious beliefs, and cultural practices.” Brown’s two main religious contentions were that: 1. “the vaccine is made with aborted fetus tissue” and 2. “his body is a temple to God.” The EEO rejected Brown’s request for religious accommodation, which led to Brown’s eventual termination.

Upon Defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the District Court found that Brown’s beliefs were not based on religion, but “more broadly defined personal preferences.” The Court noted that Brown’s objections may have been “informed” by religion but were not religious beliefs warranting an accommodation.

The District Court, in this case, distinguished the ruling Ringhofer, which was discussed in last week’s newsletter. The Court in Ringhofer found that the Plaintiffs’ objections were based on their religious convictions around abortion and that each Plaintiff was able to establish that their respective beliefs were grounded in religious practice and doctrine. In the instant case, the Court found that Plaintiff’s abortion-related objections come second to the secular health concerns that formed the bulk of his objections to the vaccine. Unlike the Plaintiffs in Ringhofer, Brown did not connect his beliefs that the COVID-19 vaccine contained fetal tissue to the practice of abortion.

July 18, 2024: The Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District in California reversed and remanded an order of the trial court denying Plaintiffs’ motion for attorney fees under a California “private attorney general” statute in Let Them Choose v. San Diego Unified School District. On September 28, 2021, The San Diego Unified School District established a plan known as “the Roadmap.” The Roadmap required proof of COVID-19 vaccination for students to attend in-person classes and participate in extracurricular activities starting in January 2022. Plaintiffs sued the School District contending that it did not have the authority to impose a local vaccination requirement because any decision related to public school attendance needed to be decided on the state level. The trial court agreed with the Plaintiffs. The School District appealed, and The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s decision that the School District did not have the authority to implement the Roadmap, because only the state could mandate school-related vaccine policies. The State Supreme Court denied further review.

After the appellate decision in this case, each Plaintiff filed a motion with the trial court for attorney’s fees under the private attorney general provision contained in the California Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5. The Plaintiffs contended that they were successful parties in a lawsuit that “resulted in the enforcement of an important right affecting the public interest.” The School District opposed the motions and contended that the “plaintiffs’ lawsuit did not advance, but rather interfered with, the public interest” and “the plaintiffs’ lawsuit conferred no actual benefit on the public at large.” The School District emphasized that the Roadmap was a tentative proposal that had not been implemented. The trial court denied the Plaintiffs’ motions for attorney fees. The Plaintiffs appealed and The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s decision.

The Court of Appeal emphasized that, notwithstanding the School District’s claims that they abandoned the Roadmap for reasons unrelated to the lawsuit, Plaintiff’s lawsuit was an effort to enforce a right that affected the public interest. Three months after the vaccination requirement was established, the Plaintiffs were able to obtain a court order that prohibited the School District from enacting this Roadmap plan. Accordingly, the Court found that Plaintiff’s lawsuit achieved its goal which was furthering the strong public interest in a statewide immunization policy that affected parents and children in the School District who did not want to be vaccinated for COVID-19. This was sufficient evidence of a public interest to support an award of attorneys’ fees under the Private Attorney General provision.

This decision is of some concern because it did not involve allegations of wrongdoing by the School District. It involved the question of whether the School District had local authority to implement a COVID-19 vaccination policy meant to protect against the spread of the virus. This reasoning would seem to expand the notion of public interest litigation to include a simple difference of statutory interpretation over the scope of local authority to act. This decision could produce a chilling effect on local governments to take steps to deal with a health emergency for fear that they risk paying the attorney's fees of any private party that does not agree with their actions.

Public Health Law Watch has been reporting on the litigation challenges to public health authority that came in a wave with the COVID-19 virus and the measures public health officials imposed to slow its spread. Recent Supreme Court decisions have opened new avenues for challenges to measures intended to improve public health. In particular, the decision in Students For Fair Admission v. Harvard has encouraged litigation challenging programs intended to improve the health of historically marginalized communities, on the grounds that they are “race preferential” and impermissible under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  

Public Health Law Watch will begin covering litigation events of this kind in our newsletter starting next week, with a discussion of Students For Fair Admission and what it might mean for efforts to improve health equity.