Airport Alert: Federal Court Pauses Federal Employee Vaccine Mandate
January 21, 2022
The U.S. Court for the southern district of Texas issued an injunction against President Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate that required all federal employees be vaccinated or obtain a religious or medical exemption or else face termination. This injunction pauses implementation of this requirement for more than 2 million civilian servants including those working at TSA, CBP, and FAA. This injunction does not impact the Department of Defense's separate vaccine mandate on all of its uniformed military personnel.
Federal agencies through the end of 2021 could only encourage non-compliant employees to get vaccinated according to guidance issued by the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget on December 9, 2021. No additional enforcement actions beyond education and counseling could occur. At the beginning of 2022, federal agencies could move forward with reprimands, suspensions, and terminations for those that did not meet the vaccine requirement or had their exemption request denied. Some had already begun this.
In today's ruling, the Texas judge stated that 'the court notes at the outset that this case is not about whether folks should get vaccinated against COVID-19“the court believes they should. It is not even about the federal government's power, exercised properly, to mandate vaccination of its employees. It is instead about whether the President can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment. That, under the current state of the law, as just recently expressed by the Supreme Court, is a bridge too far.'
This court declined to rule on the federal contractor vaccine requirement, noting that this executive order is already the subject of a nationwide injunction.
As always, we will keep you updated as we learn more about the impact of this injunction.
The U.S. Court for the southern district of Texas issued an injunction against President Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate that required all federal employees be vaccinated or obtain a religious or medical exemption or else face termination. This injunction pauses implementation of this requirement for more than 2 million civilian servants including those working at TSA, CBP, and FAA. This injunction does not impact the Department of Defense's separate vaccine mandate on all of its uniformed military personnel.
Federal agencies through the end of 2021 could only encourage non-compliant employees to get vaccinated according to guidance issued by the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget on December 9, 2021. No additional enforcement actions beyond education and counseling could occur. At the beginning of 2022, federal agencies could move forward with reprimands, suspensions, and terminations for those that did not meet the vaccine requirement or had their exemption request denied. Some had already begun this.
In today's ruling, the Texas judge stated that 'the court notes at the outset that this case is not about whether folks should get vaccinated against COVID-19“the court believes they should. It is not even about the federal government's power, exercised properly, to mandate vaccination of its employees. It is instead about whether the President can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment. That, under the current state of the law, as just recently expressed by the Supreme Court, is a bridge too far.'
This court declined to rule on the federal contractor vaccine requirement, noting that this executive order is already the subject of a nationwide injunction.
As always, we will keep you updated as we learn more about the impact of this injunction.
