Following a nationwide injunction blocking contractors for the Department of Energy and other agencies from ordering workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to keep their jobs, several other vaccine lawsuits against specific DOE sites are shifting to federal appeals courts, legal filings this week show.
In the matter of the nationwide injunction, the Justice Department will take its case for reinstating the contractor mandate to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On Dec. 7, a federal judge in the southern district of Georgia said Dec. 7 that the administration of President Joe Biden probably lacks authority to use federal procurement law to order contract workers to be vaccinated. The ruling did not arise from a suit against DOE or its contractors.
However, the Georgia decision was cited in legal arguments this week by about 95 vaccine holdouts suing the prime contractor for the agency’s Savannah River Site.
The federal district court in South Carolina had denied a request for an injunction against Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions but the Charlotte-based attorney for the plaintiffs said he is filing paperwork to challenge the case to the Richmond, Va.-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Also in the South Carolina case, the attorney for the Savannah River vaccine refusers said both houses of the South Carolina legislature have now passed measures against vaccination mandates. In the filing, the plaintiffs also said that based on recent public statements, Gov. Henry McMaster (R) is expected to sign the measure, making it the state’s official policy.
Across the country, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington state had yet to rule upon an injunction request filed by more than 200 workers at the Hanford Site against a vaccine mandates levied by multiple site contractors. But attorneys for the plaintiffs, aligned with an organization called the Silent Majority Foundation, cited the Georgia ruling this week in a filing.
Whichever party loses before the federal court in Washington state could take the case to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears appeals from federal courts in nine Western states and a couple of U.S. territories.
Looking down the road, the legal dispute over vaccine mandates could conceivably end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, especially should there be a split between the federal appeals courts.
Meanwhile, with a federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate suspended at the site, employees put on unpaid leave at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory because they would not take the vaccine were scheduled to return to work this week, a lab spokesperson told Weapons Complex Monitor.
The DOE and its contractors have a Jan. 5 deadline for workers to be vaccinated, but at deadline Friday, the agency planned to take no action against contractors not vaccinated by then, a spokesperson said.
