‘Crucial Victory’: Appeals Court Revives Challenge to Military COVID Vaccine Mandates

Rights & Freedoms | U.S.

3 hours ago

Originally posted by: Children's Health Defense

A federal appeals court reinstated a religious discrimination lawsuit challenging the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, ruling the case isn’t moot even though the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) rescinded the mandate in 2023.

Three former civilian DOD employees — Amy Arzamendi, Michael Orloff and Brooke Stadler — filed the lawsuit in July 2023, and asked the court to certify it as a class action suit.

The employees said they lived “under constant fear and duress, including the threat of discipline and termination” while waiting for the DOD to process their religious exemption requests, submitted in November 2021.

They also sought exemptions from the DOD’s testing, masking and distancing protocols during the pandemic.

In its 2-1 ruling last week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially reversed a lower court’s April 2024 dismissal of the case, allowing the plaintiffs’ claims related to the vaccine mandate to proceed.

The 5th Circuit ruled the plaintiffs still had grounds to sue for damages even after the vaccine mandate was rescinded, but rejected their claim that the military violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by denying their requests for exemptions from its other pandemic-related policies.

Attorney E. Scott Lloyd, who represents the plaintiffs, told Law360 that they were “really pleased to get a unanimous ruling on the mootness issue.” He said he and the plaintiffs would “take a close look to determine our next steps.”

California attorney Greg Glaser, who is not involved with the lawsuit, said the ruling “is a crucial victory for holding federal agencies accountable for their COVID-19 mandate overreach.” He also said the ruling firmly establishes that religious freedom protections are not suspended during a public health emergency.

“The 5th Circuit correctly held that the Biden administration cannot erase the harm inflicted on employees simply by rescinding an unconstitutional policy after the fact.

“By affirming that damages claims are not moot, this decision breathes life into countless similar cases that were wrongly dismissed and provides a clear path to justice for those who suffered religious discrimination.”

The 5th Circuit sent the case back to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, which previously dismissed the lawsuit. In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reinstate service members who were discharged under the military’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate.

DOD slow-walked religious exemption requests

Former President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14043, issued in September 2021, mandated COVID-19 vaccination for federal employees, including military personnel, who had until Nov. 22, 2021, to be “fully vaccinated.”

In their exemption requests to DOD, the plaintiffs cited the use of aborted fetal cells or fetal tissue in the COVID-19 vaccines and argued that their immune systems were created to be naturally robust enough to protect against infection.

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that the DOD slow-walked and stonewalled their requests, ignoring repeated inquiries about their status.

One response from the DOD said the military did not have “a timeline on when and how the review process will be.”

In January 2022, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction, valid nationwide, barring the federal government from implementing or enforcing Biden’s executive order.

The plaintiffs alleged that the DOD continued to slow-walk their exemption requests even after the court issued the preliminary injunction. One DOD email stated that it was “working the [sic] submitted exemption requests.”

That year, the DOD denied the plaintiffs’ requests for exemption from the testing, masking and distancing protocols.

The military placed Stadler on administrative leave for failure to comply with the COVID-19 testing requirements. She resigned on June 1, 2022.

In January 2023, the DOD formally rescinded its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. In March 2023, the 5th Circuit blocked Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal employees, and in May 2023, Biden officially rescinded that mandate.

In April 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas dismissed the lawsuit, ruling it moot because the vaccine mandate and other COVID-19 measures had been rescinded.

In partially reversing the lower court’s decision, the 5th Circuit upheld the ruling that rejected the plaintiffs’ claims regarding the military’s testing, masking and distancing requirements, finding that the plaintiffs failed to effectively link their religious beliefs to their objections toward these measures.

In a December 2023 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the January 2022 injunction and two other cases challenging the federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates, ruling that the injunction was moot because the federal government had rescinded the mandates.

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Dissenting opinion calls for ‘broader protection of religious objections’ to testing and masking protocols

In his partial dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Don R. Willett agreed with the majority’s decision to revive the plaintiffs’ challenge to the military’s vaccine mandate but argued that Stadler and Arzamendi’s claims related to the military’s testing, masking and distancing policies were plausible and those claims should be reinstated.

“The majority demands certainty where the law requires only plausibility,” Willett wrote.

Lloyd told Law360 that Willett’s “dissenting opinion on the adequacy of the Plaintiffs’ pleadings regarding their religious beliefs was compelling.”

“Judge Willett’s partial dissent is particularly significant, rightly arguing for broader protection of religious objections to the testing and masking protocols,” Glaser said. “His reasoning underscores that the threshold for pleading a religious conflict should be a gateway, not a gauntlet.”

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