Case updates this week:

Tuesday, May 16th: In Neiman v. Borough of Wyomissing, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed Plaintiff’s various constitutional rights claims that he brought against two police officers acting in their official capacities as well as the two municipalities that employed them. The case arose when Klint Neiman, the Plaintiff, violated the Wyomissing Area School District’s (WASD) face-mask policy and refused to leave school property on several occasions when asked to do so, claiming that he had a medical exemption, despite that the WASD policy did not allow any exemptions. School officials called local police to remove Neiman from school property. Police briefly detained Neiman to conduct an investigation into the school’s official’s claim that Neiman was trespassing. Neiman was eventually charged with defiant trespass. Neiman sued under 42 U.S.C. §1983 alleging violations of his rights under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment. The Court determined that Neiman was only briefly detained by the police officers and the detention was reasonable as there was probable cause that Neiman was committing the crime of defiant trespass. The Court dismissed the Fourteenth Amendment claims because Neiman received all procedural due process due to him when he received the notice of the charges in a timely fashion and was granted an opportunity to be heard. Lastly, The Court dismissed Neiman’s First Amendment claims. The Court determined that Neiman had not produced evidence that his detention prevented him from expressive activity that was protected by the First Amendment, “rather, the allegations show he was arrested or detained for trespassing on school property.” Further, even if Neiman had been incidentally prevented from speaking, he would have been required to establish a lack of probable cause for his detention, which he could not do.

The Court dismissed Neiman’s claims against the two police officers because Neiman had already sued the Boroughs that employed them and a lawsuit against public officers in their official positions is basically a suit against the “public entity.”

Sunday, May 21st: The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois granted The City of Carbondale’s motion for summary judgment in Harris v. City of Carbondale. Plaintiff Shane Harris was a dispatcher for the City of Carbondale from 2015 until December 2021. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Carbondale City Council established a city-wide vaccination policy. This vaccination policy required all employees to receive vaccinations against the virus. However, it also included a medical exemption “based upon an [ADA]-recognized disability that prevents the employee from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.” The policy required that the employee provide sufficient reasoning from a medicalco provider to satisfy the exemption requirements. Employees who did not follow this policy were placed on unpaid administrative leave for up to 80 hours or until the employee complied with the policy. Harris’s primary care physician, Dr. Eric Graham, wrote a letter on behalf of Harris in support of his request for a medical exemption. The City notified Harris that the request was insufficient because the letter did not reference one of the known contraindications to receiving the Covid vaccine. On November 22, 2021, the City alerted Harris of his non-compliance with the vaccine policy and placed him on administrative leave for up to two weeks. On December 8, 2021, the City sent Harris a Notice of Termination. The Court ruled for summary judgment in favor of the City because there was nothing in the record supporting Harris’ claim that his condition is contraindicated with the vaccine and Harris received more than adequate pre-termination notice.

Tuesday, May 23rd: In October 2021, the City of Chicago instituted a vaccination policy requiring all employees to obtain a Covid-19 vaccination. The policy also required employees who were unvaccinated for any reason to complete periodic testing and report their test results through the Covid-19 vaccination portal. A group of Chicago Police Department employees brought suit in Kondilis et al v. City Of Chicago. 

Each of the plaintiffs applied for a religious exemption from vaccination. Some were granted and some were not. However, all plaintiffs were unvaccinated and required to test and report their results in the designated portal. All refused even after being ordered to do so.  Plaintiffs alleged that by punishing them for failing to report their Vaccination status that the Defendant constituted religious discrimination under Title VII, denied them equal protection, and violated their due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.  

The Court found that each Plaintiff’s request for a religious accommodation was limited to receiving the vaccination and did not apply to testing or entering the results in a portal. The Plaintiffs made no effort to claim that entering information in the portal was contrary to any held religious belief and dismissed their claims. The Court also dismissed Plaintiffs’ equal protection claims because they did not establish disparate treatment vis-a-vis employees who failed to report their testing status who did not have religious exemptions. The Court dismissed the Plaintiff’s due process claims because, not having alleged an infringement of a fundamental right, the state’s policy only needed to be rationally related to a compelling state interest. The Court noted that many courts had already found that controlling the COVID-19 pandemic was a compelling state interest.  

Tuesday, June 7th:  In Health Freedom Defense, Inc. v. Alberto Carvalho, the Ninth Circuit of Court of Appeals vacated a decision by the United States District Court for the Central District of California dismissing plaintiffs’ complaint alleging that the Los Angeles United School District’s (LAUSD) vaccine mandate violated their fundamental right to refuse medical treatment. The District Court had granted LAUSD’s motion for judgment on the pleadings because the case had become moot after the LAUSD rescinded its vaccine mandate. The District Court also ruled on the merits, finding that the law did not recognize a fundamental right to refuse medical treatment. Applying a rational review standard, the District Court held that the LAUSD had a legitimate government purpose in requiring COVID-19 vaccination. 

On appeal, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that because the LAUSD had “reversed course several times” with respect to its vaccination policies, that the voluntary cessation exception to the mootness doctrine applied. The Court then addressed the merits of the plaintiffs’ pleadings to determine if they stated a viable legal claim. The core of the plaintiffs’ argument was that the COVID-19 vaccine only ameliorated symptoms in recipients of the vaccine and did not stop the spread of disease to other people. As such, the vaccine was not really a vaccine, but a medical treatment. Plaintiffs claimed to have a fundamental right to refuse medical treatment, and that the vaccine mandate impinged on that fundamental right. 

The Court noted that on a motion for judgment on the pleadings, the Court must assume all factual allegations in the Complaint are true, and then decide whether those facts, if true, would support the relief requested. Thus, the Court proceeded as though misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine, i.e., that it does not help prevent the spread of disease, was true. The Court then determined that Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) did not apply in this case, because Jacobson only applied to cases involving vaccines that prevent the spread of disease, and that the District Court erred in applying Jacobson to the plaintiffs’ substantive due process claims.i The Court did not say that the District Court applied the wrong standard of review or misstated the governmental purpose. It simply said that Jacobson was not the correct precedent for the decision and relying on it was a reversible error. 

The dissent stated what the majority opinion merely implied. The dissent called for the 9th Circuit to explicitly recognize a fundamental right to refuse medical treatment that is protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.