Yesterday the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia issued a state-wide injunction against enforcement of Executive Order 14042 regarding the vaccine mandate for state contractors. The ruling complements a number of cases in which it has been ruled in the past few weeks that government-issued vaccine requirements have been blocked. We have attached a link to the case here. Federal courts have now blocked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) preliminary emergency standard with its vaccination or test mandate and mandatory vaccination for medical personnel in a preliminary final decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). .
In yesterday’s court ruling, Judge Stan Baker stated that “Plaintiffs are likely to have evidence that the language used by Congress did not unequivocally authorize the President to give the type of mandate contained in EO 14042, as EO 14042 goes far “. beyond dealing with administrative and management issues in order to promote efficiency and economy in procurement and contracting, and instead acts in its application as a regulation of public health, which is not clearly authorized under the Public Procurement Act. ”Opinion on 20. The court also found that the risk of losing contracts, complying with a later invalidated regulation, and spending time and money in compliance efforts are irreparable harm. Contrary to last Tuesday’s decision on EO 14042 from the Eastern District of Kentucky, Judge Baker issued a statewide restraining order.
It will be interesting to see how the administration deals with this collection of negative decisions about their vaccination mandate requirements. We should expect Judge Baker’s decision to be challenged in the Eleventh Ward. The decision is now confusing the EO 14042 award process. For the time being, the administration is prohibited from forcing federal entrepreneurs to accept contractual clauses that require their employees to be vaccinated. Employers can also suspend steps to require their workforce to be vaccinated. While they could choose to require their employees to be vaccinated anyway, employers should be aware of state laws in Florida, Texas, and elsewhere that prohibit vaccination regulations that are currently no longer subject to federal proviso that Executive Ordinance and other federal mandates are suspended will.
Presumably at some point there will be more clarity about the final enforceability of the government’s vaccine orders. This could take weeks or months and probably won’t come until the various cases are decided by the Supreme Court.
