Readers of SCOTUS Today, especially employers, might appreciate seeing an article that I co-wrote concerning the Supreme Court's rejection of a petition to enjoin New York State's vaccine mandate applicable to health care workers: Supreme Court Lets New York’s Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers Stand.”

This action is consequential on its face because while future litigation by health care workers and others is certain, no fewer than six Justices have indicated support for a major mandate that allows for very limited exemptions. This marks the second time that the Court has rejected such a petition.

How this will affect pending multi-district litigation with respect to a much broader mandate, or with respect to employer-mandated updates (though these increasingly have been upheld) is to be seen.

But the New York case might also have broader implications.

Three Justices, led by Justice Gorsuch, along with Justices Alito and Thomas, would have enjoined the New York law because they saw its absence of a categorical religious exemption as violative of the First Amendment's guarantee of the free exercise of religion.

In that no known religion expresses a specific anti-vaccine doctrine, the proponents of religious exemptions have an involved circumstantial rationale. Given that the conservative majority of the Court has shown great sympathy toward religious organizations that can demonstrate discrimination with respect to non-religious activities where secular entities receive public financial support but they are denied them, the fact that only three Justices dissented as to the application for a stay of the Second Circuit's broad approval of the New York vaccine mandate might be telling.

While the conservatives indeed might be united in the decision of a pending case relating to the support of educational institutions in Maine, it would appear that there is much less support for claims that individuals are being subject to religious discrimination when the order at issue applies to everyone equally.

As to vaccine mandates, which are certainly going to get greater attention as we are being affected by the highly-communicative Omicron Variant of the COVID virus, there is increasing evidence that vaccine mandates, especially those issued by private employers, will find support in the courts. That is for future blogs.

Back to Commercial Litigation Update Blog

Search This Blog

Blog Editors

Authors

Related Services

Topics

Archives

Jump to Page

Subscribe

Sign up to receive an email notification when new Commercial Litigation Update posts are published:

Privacy Preference Center

When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.