A federal district court judge in South Carolina will hear oral arguments Tuesday in litigation seeking to block the management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site from firing employees starting Nov. 30 for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Judge Michelle Childs issued an order Nov. 22 calling for about 90 plaintiffs and defendant DOE contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) to file all written arguments by Nov. 29 prior to the hearing date in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina.
That is according to court filings posted online concerning the plaintiffs’ motions for preliminary injunction and restraining order against termination for SRNS workers who for one reason or another refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine. In a recent filing, plaintiffs in the case said they fear serious illness or even death if they take the COVID-19 vaccination shot.
Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in the case Nov. 19 after SRNS had filed its notice to dismiss, saying the vaccine holdouts lack persuasive legal or medical arguments and simply are balking at taking the shots.
The Fluor-led operations contractor at Savannah River said recently 96% of its roughly 5,500-person workforce at the federal complex near the South Carolina-Georgia line has been vaccinated against the illness blamed for almost 775,000 deaths in the United States as of Nov. 24.
Other vaccination-mandate-related cases are currently being litigation for DOE properties such as the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
Article was revised Nov. 29 to correct the date of the hearing.
