It is time for a federal district court judge in Washington state to toss out the amended complaint brought by more than 300 workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site who oppose mandatory vaccination against COVID-19, government lawyers said in filings last week.
“Regardless of what procedural exhaustion requirements must be met to assert certain statutory claims, Plaintiffs lack constitutional standing to sue,” the U.S. Attorney’s office for Eastern Washington said in a Thursday April 21 filing backing its motion to dismiss the case by David Donovan and other vaccinate resisters at Hanford.
“As previously argued, nearly all of the 314 Plaintiffs in this case have claims that are either unripe, lack a sufficient constitutional injury, arise from self-inflicted injuries, or are insufficiently pled to establish standing,” according to the 8-page motion filed with U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice.
The judge has set a May 11 hearing on the federal motion to toss out the litigation brought by feds and contract workers, including many in security, at the former plutonium-production complex. Employees bringing suit have backing from a Pasco, Wash.,-based Silent Majority Foundation that is “centered on protecting America’s constitution and theological foundation,” according to its website.
The feds argued that COVID-19 court rulings cited by the vaccine objectors at Hanford do not help the plaintiffs’ case very much.
The Hanford plaintiffs’ attorney said in an earlier filing the government was not appealing a case brought by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, seeming to imply the U.S. government was throwing in the towel. The Arizona federal judge said the contractor mandate established by President Joe Biden exceeded executive authority under procurement law.
“First, contrary to Plaintiffs’ assertions, the federal defendants in Brnovich v. Biden have in fact appealed” the permanent injunction against the vaccination mandate issued in February by a federal district judge in Arizona.
Also, the government said, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans recently vacated a federal district judge’s restraining order against a vaccination mandate for federal employees.
Finally, a third case, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin versus U.S. Navy Seals has no real bearing in the Hanford case because the Austin litigation revolves around an order requiring vaccination for military personnel, the government argued.
The Department of Justice has argued since February that an amended complaint filed in January by the Hanford plaintiffs is no more compelling than a prior version. Judge Rice in December 2021 refused to issue a restraining order against mandatory vaccination at Hanford. The DOE and its Office of Environmental Management the percentage of federal and contractor workers vaccinated or issued exemptions is in the high 90s.
