Workers employed by the Department of Energy’s prime contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina withdrew a legal challenge to the site’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate from a federal appeals court.
“The dismissal of this interlocutory appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction does not affect either party’s right to appeal any final judgment entered by the district court,” according to the order filed Wednesday in the case brought by Shawn Phillip Rhoades and roughly 90 other plaintiffs against Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS).
The appeal had been docketed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Last December, a federal district judge in South Carolina ruled against issuing a preliminary injunction blocking the Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions’ COVID-19 vaccination mandate at the DOE complex near the South Carolina-Georgia state line.
U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs, now a Biden administration nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, ruled then the plaintiffs failed to show they would suffer irreparable harm if the vaccine mandate was left in place and failed to show a likelihood to succeed on the merits.
The plaintiffs subsequently took their case to the fourth Circuit. The last brief in the appeals court was filed March 28 by SRNS, who described the challenge as frivolous. Lawyers for the joint venture said the challenge was filed in district court on Oct. 14, 2021, or “one day before the deadline to receive the first vaccine dose under SRNS’s policy.”
