Case updates this week:

Friday January 5th: The Rhode Island Department of Health settled a lawsuit brought by parents challenging a mask mandate the Department of Health imposed when schools reopened in 2021. The settlement agreement stipulates that the Department of Health would initiate a Proposed Permanent Regulation that requires the Department to publish a public statement on its website explaining its rationale for imposing any future statewide masking requirement. As consideration for dismissing the lawsuit, the Plaintiffs and their representatives will be allotted extra time to speak at the public comment session for the proposed regulation beyond that allotted for the general public.

Wednesday January 10th: The Michigan Supreme Court heard arguments over whether two cases involving business closures that occurred during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic should be allowed to proceed. The plaintiffs, owners of restaurants, bars, and gyms, argued on two fronts: that there is a genuine issue of fact as to whether the closures were kept in place for longer than necessary, and that regardless of the reasonableness of the closures, that they constituted a taking for which the government is absolutely obligated to compensate. Attorneys for Michigan argued that almost every other court in the country has decided that business closures in the face of a pandemic do not constitute taking, because the orders were properly within the state’s police power and necessary to combat a “grave threat to public health.”