After the government won a key legal battle last week, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday that the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should allow it to enforce a presidential executive order requiring federal employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
On April 7 the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit overturned a nationwide preliminary injunction issued by a federal district judge in Texas that had prevented federal agencies such as the Department of Energy from enforcing President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14043 mandating that federal employees be vaccinated against Coronavirus-2019.
“But the Court has not yet issued the mandate, and the docket entry accompanying the opinion states that the “[m]andate issue date” is May 31, 2022, the default date under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 41(b),” the Justice Department said in its Monday filing.
The court should “take appropriate steps” so the government may “resume implementation and enforcement of Executive Order 14043,” according to the filing. Prior to the preliminary injunction from the court in Texas, federal vaccine holdouts who did not receive a medical or religious exemption would be fired.
Government attorneys have contacted the legal team for the plaintiffs, a group called Feds for Medical Freedom, and the plaintiffs oppose the request, according to a footnote.
