18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

562 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition with the District Court here, one ruling should not impose a binding judgment for the entire country. Id . at *4-5. The Fifth Circuit reasoned that the District Court gave little justification for issuing an injunction outside the 14 States that had brought suit. The Fifth Circuit opined that the vaccine rule was an issue of great significance currently being litigated throughout the country, and it was not in a position to make definitive pronouncements about the outcome of the appeal. The Fifth Circuit thereby denied the stay insofar as the order applied to the 14 Plaintiff States, and granted the stay as to the order’s application to any other jurisdictions State Of Louisiana, et al. v. Biden, Case No. 21-CV-3867 (W.D. La. Dec. 16, 2021). Plaintiffs, the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Indiana, brought a class action and sought a preliminary injunction blocking the implementation and enforcement Executive Order 14042, which mandated contractor and sub-contractor compliance with COVID-19 vaccination requirements. The Court granted the motion for a preliminary injunction. The Court noted that Congress delegated to the President the authority to manage federal procurement through the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act (“FPASA”), in order to “promote economy and efficiency in procurement by contracting with sources that provide adequate COVID-19 safeguards for their workforce.” Id . at 15. As it framed the issues, the Court questioned whether President Biden exceeded his delegated authority under the FPASA in promulgating Executive Order 14042. The Court found that President Biden did exceed his authority. The Court agreed with Defendants’ argument that there was a reasonably sufficient nexus between Executive Order 14042 and the government’s policy under the FPASA to procure and manage properties and services in an economical and efficient manner because it was reasonable to assume that worker vaccinated against COVID-19 would be more reliable during surges of the virus. Id . at 17. The Court, however, found that the Executive Order conflicted with the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which mandates that the powers not delegated the U.S. Constitution were reserved to the States or the people. Id . at 18. The Court determined that Plaintiffs would face irreparable harm absent an injunction because vaccines could not be “undone” and the States had “an interest in seeing their constitutionality reserved over public health policy defended from federal overreach.” Id . at 23. The Court further found that preliminary relief was not contrary to the public interest, as the public interest would be served by maintaining the country’s constitutional structure and maintaining the liberty of individuals to make personal decisions accordingly to their own beliefs. Id . For these reasons, the Court granted the motion for a preliminary injunction. State Of Oklahoma, et al. v. Biden , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 246534 (W.D. Okla. Dec. 28, 2021). Plaintiffs, the Governor of Oklahoma, several other state officials, and a group of anonymous civilians, filed a class action and sought a preliminary injunction seeking to bar enforcement of an Executive Order mandating the vaccination of members of the Oklahoma National Guard and the Oklahoma Air National Guard against COVID-19. The Court denied the motion on the grounds that Plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims. Plaintiffs contended that the vaccine mandate violated the U.S. Constitution. The Court determined that there was a constitutional grant of power to Congress to provide for "organizing" and "disciplining" the militia, under which Congress directed that "the discipline, including training, of the Army National Guard shall conform to that of the Army. The discipline, including training, of the Air National Guard shall conform to that of the Air Force." Id . at *26. The Court noted that if a state should did not wish to comply with the federal standards governing the National Guard, the state was free to establish its own, independent unit and Oklahoma had not done so. The Court determined that it was clear that the intent of Congress, as expressed in the text of its enactments, was that the Guard and its members will be prepared, per federal military standards, to be ordered into federal service for deployment alongside members of the active duty Army and Air Force, on little or no notice, anywhere in the world. Id . at *28. Therefore, the Court opined it was reasonable to include the Air National Guard and the National Guard in the vaccine mandate in order to have members healthy and ready for action and because the Department of Defense regulations on vaccination protocols applied to all members. The Court disagreed with Plaintiffs’ objection to the executive order as applied to civil service employees who were not Guard members, since the order was a permissible exercise of executive authority. Plaintiffs also challenged the mandate under the major questions doctrine, which the Court rejected. It reasoned that adding an FDA- approved vaccine to the list of nine other vaccines that all service members were already required to take would hardly amount to “an enormous and transformative expansion” of the “regulatory authority” that the Secretary of Defense already possessed. Id . at *33. The Court further observed that the Guard had been included in military vaccination mandates for a long time, and thus there was nothing novel regarding application of long- established and congressionally-granted administrative authority. Id . The Court rejected Plaintiffs’ argument that