Supreme Court Throws Out COVID Mandate Rulings

The Supreme Court on Monday sided with the Biden administration and threw out three cases challenging COVID-19 vaccine mandates for executive branch employees and military service members.

With the mandates rescinded, the high court agreed to set aside lower rulings and thus provided a clean legal slate for future vaccine mandates, The Hill reported.

The justices wiped away the appeals court decisions — one in favor of the challenger and two supporting the mandates — and instructed the courts to dismiss the cases as moot, CNN reported.

The vaccine requirement for federal employees was rescinded by President Joe Biden in May, and the Pentagon rescinded its mandate for the military in January.

Two appeals courts had come to opposite conclusions about whether federal employees could challenge the constitutionality of mandates in court, or whether they were required to first go through the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).

In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that federal law required the MSPB. That was in a case brought by a Navy civilian employee.

Soon thereafter, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit issued an opposing decision in favor of an organization called Feds for Medical Freedom and various other plaintiffs, The Hill reported.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in the military vaccine mandate case, issued an injunction in November 2022 preventing the Air Force from enforcing the requirement against religious objectors.

A few weeks later, Congress passed legislation directing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to rescind the military mandate.

The Biden administration urged the Supreme Court to issue Munsingwear vacatur — used when a case, while being held on appeal at a circuit court or by the Supreme Court, becomes moot due to underlying factors.

Although the Navy employee who lost in the lower court agreed, the victorious plaintiffs in the other federal employee case and the military vaccine case urged the Supreme Court to let their rulings stand.

Those plaintiffs argued that Munsingwear wasn’t applicable because the Biden administration had voluntarily mooted its own case.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Biden last year, dissented from the court’s action in two of the cases. She disagreed with her colleagues' decision to wipe away the lower court rulings in those matters.

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