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Federal appeals court won’t stop health worker COVID mandate
Legal Topics |
2021/10/22 08:00
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A federal appeals court dealt another blow to a lawsuit targeting Maine’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers, resulting in an 11th-hour appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday.
A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to stop the vaccine requirement, saying a lawsuit brought by opponents of the mandate was unlikely to succeed. The state is due to begin enforcing the vaccine requirement on Oct. 29.
The decision was dated Tuesday, the same day the U.S. Supreme Court declined an emergency request to intervene.
But the Supreme Court left open the door for another appeal, and lawyers swiftly filed a request for a preliminary injunction Wednesday after the appeals court issued its final decision.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills praised the decision by the appeals court, saying Wednesday that vaccinations “are the best tool we have to protect the lives and livelihoods of Maine people.”
“This rule protects health care workers, their patients and our health care capacity in the face of this deadly virus. Just as vaccination defeated smallpox and vaccination defeated polio, vaccination is the way to defeat COVID-19,” she said in a statement.
The 1st Circuit decision came a week after a federal judge in Maine upheld the vaccination mandate for health workers.
“Maine’s interest in safeguarding its residents is paramount. While we do not diminish the appellants’ liberty of conscience, we cannot find, absent any constitutional or statutory violation, any error in the district court’s conclusion that the rule promotes strong public interests and that an injunction would not serve the public interest,” the 1st Circuit wrote.
The Liberty Counsel, which filed the lawsuit in federal court in Maine, claims to represent more than 2,000 health care workers who don’t want to be forced to be vaccinated.
Mat Staver, founder and chair of the Liberty Counsel, said Wednesday that it’s now up to the Supreme Court “to obtain relief for these health care heroes against Governor Janet Mills’ illegal edict.”
Most health care workers have complied but several dozen have opted to quit over the mandate, and Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston already curtailed some admissions because of a shortage of nurses. Nearly 97% of Maine emergency medical workers are vaccinated against COVID-19, Maine Department of Public Safety said Wednesday.
State agencies vowed to work with hospitals and nursing homes individually to address issues. That includes working with the facilities on recruitment and retention of workers, said Jeanne Lambrew, commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
“We have seen significant improvements in the vaccine rates in our hospitals and long-term care facilities,” she said. |
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Man arrested after paint thrown on Confederate monument
Legal Topics |
2021/10/14 16:44
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An Alabama man was arrested on criminal mischief and other charges after someone threw paint on a Confederate monument that has been the subject of protests at the Lauderdale County Courthouse, the TimesDaily reported.
Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Hamilton said a deputy assigned to provide security at the courthouse saw a man splash paint on the monument Thursday afternoon. The man ran away after seeing the deputy but was captured quickly, Hamilton said.
Courthouse workers used a garden hose to wash away the blue and purple paint, and most of the discoloration was gone within 30 minutes, the newspaper reported.
Seth Jones Robinson, 20, of Florence was charged with second-degree trespassing, third-degree criminal mischief, desecration of a venerated object and attempting to elude. Robinson was booked into the county jail, and court records weren’t available Thursday to show whether he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
Erected in 1903, when Confederate veterans and their descendants were attempting to portray the South’s cause in the Civil War as noble, the monument has been the subject of complaints for years. Project Say Something, a group that opposes the memorial, has sought its removal but county commissioners cited a potential $25,000 state fine for refusing to do anything.
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Appellate court sets hearing in South Carolina abortion case
Legal Topics |
2021/10/11 21:40
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An appellate court is set to debate a lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s abortion law about a week after the U.S. Supreme Court considers a similar measure in Mississippi.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has tentatively calendared the South Carolina case for oral arguments the week of Dec. 6, according to an order from the court posted Friday.
Planned Parenthood is suing South Carolina to over the measure, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Henry McMaster earlier this year and requires doctors to perform ultrasounds to check for a so-called “fetal heartbeat.” If cardiac activity — which can typically be detected about six weeks into pregnancy — is detected, the abortion can only be performed if the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger.
Opponents have argued many women do not know they are pregnant at six weeks. And, they argue, with such an early deadline, the law gives women little time to consider whether to have an abortion.
Medical experts say the cardiac activity is not an actual heartbeat but rather an initial flutter of electric activity within cells in an embryo. They say the heart doesn’t begin to form until the fetus is at least nine weeks old, and they decry efforts to promote abortion bans by relying on medical inaccuracies.
A judge has blocked South Carolina’s law from going into effect pending the outcome of a challenge to Mississippi’s new abortion law, which the U.S. Supreme Court expects to hear Dec. 1.
Mississippi wants the high court to uphold its ban on most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, telling the court it should overrule the landmark Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion and the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that prevents states from banning abortion before viability.
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US Supreme Court allows lawsuit against troopers to proceed
Legal Topics |
2021/10/09 01:01
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The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by two state police officers accused of failing to protect a woman from a man who went on a deadly rampage, allowing a civil lawsuit to proceed.
Troopers were accused of failing to do enough when Brittany Irish reported that her boyfriend kidnapped and sexually assaulted her and later set fire to a barn owned by her parents in July 2015.
Her request for police protection was denied.
Hours later, the boyfriend killed Irish’s boyfriend, 22-year-old Kyle Hewitt, and wounded her mother before proceeding to kill another man and wound two others across several towns in northern Maine.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case on Monday but didn’t say why, the Portland Press Herald reported. The court’s decision means the troopers will not be protected by the legal concept of qualified immunity.
The attorney general’s office, which is defending the troopers, declined comment Tuesday on the lawsuit. Irish’s attorney didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
The man charged in the crime spree, Anthony Lord, pleaded guilty in 2017 to two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, aggravated assault and other charges. He’s serving two life sentences.
The lawsuit contends state police triggered the rampage when they called Lord’s cellphone, tipping him off that Brittany Irish had gone to police, instead of attempting to find or detain him. She said she’d warned police that Lord had threatened her if she spoke to authorities.
Later, police declined to post an officer outside her parents’ farmhouse in Benedicta, citing a lack of manpower.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said jurors could conclude that police created the danger, removing the qualified immunity concept that normally protects officers from actions in the line of duty.
“The defendants’ apparent utter disregard for police procedure could contribute to a jury’s conclusion that the defendants conducted themselves in a manner that was deliberately indifferent to the danger they knowingly created,” the court said.
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Commissioner sought to oversee 3 Ohio redistricting suits
Legal Topics |
2021/10/04 19:16
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Attorneys in one of three lawsuits brought against Ohio’s newly drawn maps of legislative districts asked the state’s high court Monday to appoint a master commissioner to oversee the disputes.
Lawyers for voters represented by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee told the Ohio Supreme Court the special oversight is needed to resolve discovery disputes among three separate legal teams that have sued the Ohio Redistricting Commission.
The suits allege some overlapping and some separate violations of the Ohio Constitution by the panel, which was forced to pass four-year maps along party lines because majority Republicans failed to reach agreement with the panel’s two Democrats. The panel’s GOP members defend the maps of Ohio House and Ohio Senate as fair and constitutional.
They are predicted to continue to deliver supermajorities to Republicans in both chambers, though the state’s partisan breakdown is roughly 54% Republicans, 46% Democrats.
In their Monday filing, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee’s attorneys said that they have made good-faith efforts to work out disputes with fellow lawyers but that “it is already clear that some disputes are fundamental and will be irresolvable.”
Disagreements became apparent after a meeting on Friday, they said. Among areas where lawyers are at odds are whether members of the redistricting panel can be deposed, whether they must answer written questions and whether third parties can be questioned or asked to produce evidence.
The suits are the first to be brought under amendments to the Ohio Constitution that were approved overwhelmingly by the state’s voters in 2015.
The seven-member high court, made up of four Republicans and three Democrats, has exclusive jurisdiction in resolving redistricting disputes. It has set an expedited schedule for hearing the three cases, culminating in oral arguments Dec. 8.
The other two suits were brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, the A. Philip Randolph Institute and individual voters; and by the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Ohio, Ohio Organizing Collaborative and Ohio Environmental Council and individual voters.
Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat DeWine has said he will not recuse himself, despite his father, Gov. Mike DeWine, is a member of the redistricting panel being sued. Both DeWines are Republicans.
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Arkansas court: State can’t enforce ban on mask mandates
Legal Topics |
2021/10/01 19:59
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Arkansas court: State can’t enforce ban on mask mandates
The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday said it wouldn’t allow the state to enforce its ban on mask mandates by schools and other government bodies, while lawmakers clashed over efforts to prohibit businesses from requiring employees get the COVID-19 vaccine.
In a one-page order, justices denied the request by the state to stay the August decision blocking enforcement of Arkansas’ mandate ban.
More than 100 school districts and charter schools have approved mask requirements since the ruling against the law. The requirements cover more than half the state’s public school students.
Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who signed the law but later said he regretted that decision, had separately asked the court to deny the request to stay the ruling.
“I am gratified with the Arkansas Supreme Court ruling allowing the decision of Judge Fox to stand,” Hutchinson said in a statement. “Judge Fox determined the law was unconstitutional and allowed local school districts to make their own decisions on masks.”
Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said she was disappointed with the ruling.
“I will wholeheartedly defend Arkansas law as this appeal progresses,” she said in a statement.
The ruling came the same day the majority-Republican Senate voted to send eight bills limiting or prohibiting employer vaccine mandates back to a committee following complaints that they were rushed through a day earlier without public comment.
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Federal judge delays vaccine mandate for NYC teachers
Legal Topics |
2021/09/27 17:35
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New York City schools have been temporarily blocked from enforcing a vaccine mandate for its teachers and other workers by a federal appeals judge just days before it was to take effect.
Workers in the nation’s largest school system were to be required to show vaccination proof starting Monday. But late Friday, a judge for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary injunction sought by a group of teachers pending review by a three-judge panel, which will take up the motion Wednesday.
Department of Education spokesperson Danielle Filson said officials were seeking a speedy resolution in court.
“We’re confident our vaccine mandate will continue to be upheld once all the facts have been presented, because that is the level of protection our students and staff deserve,” Filson said in an email.
The New York Post reported that the department sent an email to principals Saturday morning saying they “should continue to prepare for the possibility that the vaccine mandate will go into effect later in the week.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in August that about 148,000 school employees would have to get at least a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccination by Sept. 27. The policy covers teachers, along with other staffers, such as custodians and cafeteria workers.
It’s the first no-test-option vaccination mandate for a broad group of city workers in the nation’s most populous city. And it mirrors a similar statewide mandate for hospital and nursing home workers set to go into effect Monday.
As of Friday, 82% of department employees have been vaccinated, including 88% of teachers.
Even though most school workers have been vaccinated, unions representing New York City principals and teachers warned that could still leave the 1 million-student school system short of as many as 10,000 teachers, along with other staffers.
De Blasio has resisted calls to delay the mandate, insisting the city was ready.
“We’ve been planning all along. We have a lot of substitutes ready,” the Democrat said in a radio interview on Friday. “A lot is going to happen between now and Monday but beyond that, we are ready, even to the tune of, if we need thousands, we have thousands.”
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