Source: Children’s Health Defense

In a loss for medical freedom, a federal court last week upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The court ruled that it was reasonable for the school district to think the vaccines protected public health at the time the mandate was imposed, based on comments by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health authorities — so the district had a right to mandate them, regardless of whether the vaccine provides immunity to or prevents transmission of a disease.

Leslie Manookian, president and founder of Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF), a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said:

“This ruling should terrify every American because the court is essentially saying it doesn’t matter whether or not health authorities lie, it doesn’t matter whether or not vaccines actually have a public health impact. All that matters is that someone is afraid and tells you that this is the right way to address the problem, and then you have to comply.”

Manookian said she and the other plaintiffs are weighing a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The July 31 decision by the 11-member “en banc” U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit overturned an opinion issued in June 2024 by a three-judge panel from the same court. “En banc” refers to a session in which all judges of a federal appellate court hear a case together, and is reserved for unusually complex or significant cases of public interest.

The smaller panel, which ruled that the case should be heard, sent it back to the lower court that initially dismissed it. However, LAUSD requested that the full panel review the ruling instead.

The full panel ruled in the district’s favor. However, the ruling wasn’t unanimous. In the dissenting opinion, the judges wrote:

“The majority’s opinion comes perilously close to giving the government carte blanche to require a vaccine or even medical treatment against people’s will so long as it asserts — even if incorrectly — that it would promote ‘public health and safety.’”

Judges ‘chose to ignore decades of constitutional law’

The lawsuit, filed in 2021 by HFDF and LAUSD employees with California Educators for Medical Freedom, alleged LAUSD’s vaccine mandate — which resulted in more than 1,000 employees losing their jobs — violated their fundamental rights to reject medical treatment.

According to the complaint, because the COVID-19 vaccine only reduced symptoms and didn’t prevent the spread of the disease, it was technically a medical treatment and not a “vaccine” and therefore could not be mandated. The shot also posed serious health risks, the plaintiffs said.

They asked the court to declare the mandate unconstitutional and sought compensation for their legal and related expenses. Defendants include top LAUSD officials and board members.

Attorney Scott Street, who represented the plaintiffs, told The Defender:

“We are disappointed with the ruling, especially the shallowness of the analysis in the majority opinion, which suggests that most of the judges simply disagreed with the panel’s opinion and chose to ignore decades of constitutional law that supported it.”

Manookian, who wrote a detailed analysis of the decision’s flaws for HFDF’s website, told The Defender the plaintiffs may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dissenting judges: Plaintiffs should have opportunity to argue their case in court

LAUSD, the second-largest public school district in the U.S., began mandating the COVID-19 injections for all LAUSD employees in August 2021.

The district gave employees until Oct. 15, 2021, to either get fully vaccinated or apply for a religious or medical exemption. Under the policy, even exempt employees could be excluded from the workplace if accommodations could not be made to ensure their presence did not pose a “risk to the health and safety of others.”

Plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in November 2021. LAUSD did not rescind its COVID-19 injection mandate for employees until late September 2023, after initial oral arguments before the three-judge panel.

In March 2025, during oral arguments in the appeal to the full court, Street said the timing appeared calculated to dismiss the employees’ case as “moot,” or no longer relevant. He argued that even though the mandate had ended, the district had done nothing to reverse the damage caused by the policy, and it left the door open to mandate the vaccine in the future.

The en banc court agreed with the plaintiffs that the case was not moot because the plaintiffs suffered injuries that could be addressed.

However, the ruling followed other appeals court rulings in deciding the case should be dismissed because the U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts case, had ruled that vaccine mandates are legal.

In the majority opinion, Judge Mark J. Bennett said the historic decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which upheld a smallpox vaccine mandate, set a legal precedent for the constitutionality of mandating vaccines if they are important for public health and safety. Therefore, if the school district thought the vaccines would protect public health and safety, it was within its rights to mandate them.

In August 2021, when LAUSD implemented its mandate, the CDC said the COVID-19 vaccines were effective at preventing transmission and fully vaccinated people were “less likely to get and spread SARS-CoV-2.” The CDC recommended that everyone age 5 and up receive the vaccine.

On that basis, the en banc panel said it was reasonable for the district to mandate the shot.

The dissenting judges argued that the Jacobson ruling applies only if a vaccine prevents the “transmission and contraction of a disease,” and that the lower court erred in its application of the ruling.

They said the plaintiffs had plausibly argued that the COVID-19 vaccine mitigates serious symptoms of the disease but does not prevent transmission and infection. When a court is weighing whether to dismiss a case, it must accept the plaintiffs’ plausible factual claims as true.

“If that is true, then Jacobson’s rational basis of review does not apply, and the court must examine the vaccine mandate under a more stringent standard of review,” they wrote, adding:

“The many mistakes and missteps by our government and the scientific establishment over the past five years counsel caution: Their errors underscore the importance of carefully evaluating the sort of sweeping claims of public-health authority asserted by the Los Angeles Unified School District. …

“Faithful adherence to Supreme Court precedent confirms that we should not blindly accept the mere say-so of the government.”

The dissenting judges didn’t assess whether the vaccine prevents transmission, but said the plaintiffs should have the opportunity to argue their case in court.

Related articles in The Defender

• Employees Can Sue L.A. Schools Over COVID Vaccine Mandate Because Shots Don’t Prevent Transmission, Appeals Court Rules
• Los Angeles Schools Drop COVID Vaccine Mandate — What’s Next for Fired Employees Who Sued the District?
• CHD Weighs Appeal to Supreme Court in Rutgers Case After Court Rules Students Have No Right to Refuse COVID Shot