A federal appeals court could hear oral arguments this May in Seattle in a legal challenge brought over COVID-19 vaccination policy at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday informed attorneys for the Justice Department and the Silent Majority Foundation, representing more than 300 employees at Hanford, that the hearing is under consideration.
In a notice, the Ninth Circuit said lawyers in the case should tell the court within three days whether they are free for arguments in Seattle from May 8-12, and during the following two months.
One of the plaintiffs’ lawyers promptly reported Thursday of having another potential oral argument in the Ninth Circuit possible for the second week in May.
This followed the plaintiffs’ Monday response to a December brief from the Justice Department, which wants the higher court to uphold an earlier decision by U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice in the Eastern District of Washington state, which effectively threw out the Hanford workers case.
The judge held the lawsuit was rife with procedural defects. For example, the government has said only a handful of the employees have exhausted administrative challenges and could be subject to discipline for not being vaccinated.
The lawyers for the federal and contractor employees challenging the vaccination mandate for most Hanford workers cited other rulings by other appeals courts that found President Joe Biden’s administration overstepped its authority under the Procurement Act.
The administration lacks power to “regulate every aspect of the lives of federal contractors and their employees exceeds the scope of the Procurement Act, which merely authorizes the president to set necessary policy to improve economy and efficiency in federal contracting,” according to the Hanford workers’ filing.
The lawyers for David Donovan and the other Hanford employees in the suit said that Biden’s two September 2021 executive orders on COVID-19 vaccinations are at odds with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The act stipulates a government agency should not impose a significant burden on a person’s expression of religion unless it “furthers a compelling government interest” and is the “least restrictive means” of doing so.
The objecting workers argue “the vaccine mandate does not prevent the spread of COVID-19 and raised specific ways the mandate could have been more narrowly tailored to avoid infringing on their rights,” according to the Monday brief.
