No COVID vaccine mandate for federal employees, Court insists

In another judicial defeat for the Biden administration, a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday refused to reinstate a COVID vaccine mandate for federal employees, declining to overturn a ruling by a federal district court that had frozen the policy.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 vote, declined to issue a stay against the injunction issued Jan. 21 by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas-Galveston division.

Feds for Medical Freedom, a grassroots organization with about 6,000 members throughout the federal civil service, in December 2021 filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration and several federal agencies in December 2021.

Other parties to the lawsuit include AFGE Local 918, a union representing employees in the Federal Protective Service and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and several other individuals and federal contractors.

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In their lawsuit, the groups sought to block two COVID vaccine mandates: one covering federal employees and the other for federal contractors.

In its initial ruling, the district court declined to rule on the contractor portion of the lawsuit, as that mandate is already subject to a separate nationwide injunction issued by a Georgia court in December 2021.

Although the 5th Circuit, in upholding the lower court’s ruling, declined to explain its reasoning, it did state it would expedite review of the case and the Biden administration’s request to place the district court’s ruling on hold would be “carried with the case” — meaning the appeals court would not rule on that request until a more thorough review of the case was conducted.

The vaccine mandate for federal workers, issued in a Sept. 9, 2021 executive order, required workers to receive COVID vaccines by Nov. 22, 2021 or face disciplinary action or termination. It applied to an estimated 3.5 million federal workers.

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The executive order also removed the option for workers to apply for a medical or religious exemption.

In the original 20-page ruling by the lower court, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown found the president and his administration do not have the authority to impose such a mandate.

Lawyers for the government had argued federal law permits the president to “prescribe regulations for the conduct of employees in the executive branch,” and that the act of getting vaccinated falls under this definition of “conduct.”

The plaintiffs, however, claimed the conduct in question must fall under the specific definition of “workplace conduct” in order to be regulated by the president. As such, the plaintiffs argued Biden “acted beyond his lawful delegated authority” in issuing the mandate.

Brown, in his ruling, agreed with the assertion that the conduct did not fall under the definition of workplace conduct.

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Brown also sided with the plaintiffs on the issue of “irreparable harm,” stating federal employees would meet that legal standard if faced with a choice between “violating a mandate of doubtful validity or consenting to an unwanted medical procedure that cannot be undone.”

As disciplinary actions against non-vaccinated federal employees were set to begin as soon as Jan. 21, Brown found this placed those employees at risk of “imminent harm” and required that his order take effect on that day.

Brown questioned the president’s power to mandate federal employees undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment, writing in his decision:

The ruling by Brown also extensively referenced the Jan. 13 U.S. Supreme Court decision which effectively struck down the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) vaccine mandate for private companies with 100 or more employees.