The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that a COVID vaccine mandate for the Los Angeles Unified School District should be upheld even if the shot cannot stop transmission of the virus.
The ruling overturned an earlier decision stating that the district violated employees’ constitutional rights when they were fired for not getting the jab, Legal News Wire reported.
The challenge was originally brought back in 2021 by an organization called California Educators for Medical Freedom. They were joined by individual plaintiffs, and later by the Health Freedom Defense Fund.
The lawsuit said the district violated the rights of workers to refuse medical treatment by forcing them to get the COVID vaccine while offering no exemptions and threatening to fire them.
A federal judge dismissed the case, relying on precedent set in Jacobson v. Massachusetts. That case, however, dealt with smallpox, which had an inoculation that was proven effective. It was also decided 120 years ago.
The fired workers then appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
The district tried to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming the mandate was no longer in place. The court admonished them, however, accusing the district of trying to “tactically manipulate” the judiciary by constantly rescinding and then reupping the mandate to gain a dismissal, according to Legal News Wire.
The three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit voted two to one that the ineffectiveness of the COVID shot to prevent infection — and transmission — would separate it from “traditional vaccines.”
They also said the Jacobson case shouldn’t apply, because the district couldn’t prove the vaccines it was mandating would “effectively ‘prevent the spread’ of COVID-19.”
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Now, here is where we learn why the Ninth Circuit has a historically high rate of being overturned.
Other judges on the circuit overruled the panel’s decision, saying that the case should be decided by the entire 11-judge panel.
The new “en banc” ruling stated that the Los Angeles Unified School District vaccine measures were “more than reasonable.”
The vaccine merely lessening symptoms — not preventing the spread — was enough for the district to hit everyone with the requirement.
“The LAUSD could have reasonably determined that the vaccines would protect the health of its employees,” the majority wrote.
They added, “We reject Plaintiffs’ attempt to limit Jacobson to only those vaccines that prevent the spread of a disease and provide immunity.”
Judge John Owens and Judge Kenneth Lee, who dissented partially, wrote about concerns regarding constitutional precedent.
They argued that by not examining the effectiveness of the vaccine when weighing the legality of a medical mandate, the freedom of patients is put at risk.
They also wrote that the Jacobson decision was related to inoculations that did more than just “lessen the severity of symptoms” and therefore should be treated differently.
“If we accept the majority’s holding that a state can impose a vaccine mandate just to ‘lessen the severity of symptoms’ of sick persons — without considering whether it lessens transmission and contraction of this disease — then we are opening the door for compulsory medical treatment against people’s wishes,” the dissent read in part.
“Vaccines, by definition, build immunity and prevent transmission and contraction of an infectious disease, but we risk blurring the line between vaccines and medical treatment if vaccines are defined as anything that lessens symptoms,” it added.
Now we know why they’re referred to as the Ninth Circus.
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