These California cases regard employee vaccination requirements, school vaccine and mask policies, and a mandate to house the homeless.
Employee vaccinations
Two Los Angeles County firefighters filed a suit against the county’s Aug. 12 vaccination mandate for health care workers. The firefighters filed the complaint Dec. 10, and are joined by the Los Angeles nonprofit Protection for the Educational Rights of Kids.
The suit asks for injunctive relief against both the county’s and Beverly Hills’ vaccine mandates.
It claims the verification of vaccines violates their medical privacy as outlined by the California Constitution, that disciplinary actions against them after violation of the mandate were performed without due process, and that Beverly Hills has no authority to question requests for religious exemptions from the mandate.
The case is pending and has held no proceedings yet.
Scott Street and John Howard of JW Howard/Attorneys, LTD represent the plaintiffs.
Los Angeles Superior Judge Barbara Scheper is assigned to the case.
Case number 21stcv45066.
Read the complaint here.
School vaccine mandates
A California school district appealed a ruling on the school’s vaccine mandate.
A nonprofit claiming to represent 20,000 parents filed suit against the San Diego Unified School District and its vaccine mandate for students Oct. 12. The mandate, approved by the school board Sept. 28, applies only to students over 16 years old, and would have transferred students in violation of the policy to independent study.
The mandate did not recognize religious exemptions.
The California Department of Public Health and the California Legislature, not the school board, have the authority to mandate childhood vaccines, the nonprofit, Let Them Breathe, alleged.
San Diego Superior Judge John Meyer ruled for the parents’ nonprofit, agreeing that the power to require vaccinations lies with the state and not the school board, and that the Legislature intended a statewide standard for school vaccination requirements, created through the Department of Public Health.
“The statutory scheme leaves no room for each of the over 1,000 individual school districts to impose a patchwork of additional vaccine mandates,” Meyer said in his ruling.
The school district is required to admit students and allow their in-person attendance as long as they have received their 10 state-mandated inoculations, Meyer said.
The San Diego Unified School district appealed the case Jan. 10. No hearings have been set.
Lee Andelin and Arie Spangler of Cardiff-by-the-Sea’s Aannestad Andelin & Corn LLP represent the plaintiffs.
Mark Bresee and Amy Estrada of Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo represent the school district.
Case number 2021-43172.
Read the ruling here.
Masks in schools
The same nonprofit, Let Them Breathe, also challenged the state’s school masking guidance, but San Diego Superior Court Judge Cynthia Freeland sustained the state’s demurrer against the suit Nov. 12. Freeland is attending hearings on a motion for reconsideration.
The suit claimed the guidance violated California’s constitutional separation of powers clause, violated the Emergency Services Act, violated a right to privacy, violated Article IX of the California Constitution, violated the Administrative Procedure Act, violated the Equal Protection Clause, and violated California Education Code sections on school suspensions, independent study, and cavity search prohibition.
Freeland determined that the questioned protocol was guidance, not a mandate, and that Let Them Breathe could not have been harmed from guidance.
The plaintiffs made a motion for reconsideration. A hearing on the motion will be held Jan. 28, and the case is currently pending.
Lee Andelin and Arie Spangler of Cardiff-by-the-Sea’s Aannestad Andelin & Corn LLP and Scott Davison of Carlsbad’s Davison IP represent the plaintiffs.
Elizabeth Branham of the attorney general’s office represents the defendants.
Case number 2021-00031385
Read the judgment here.
Housing homeless mandate
Negotiations are continuing in the Skid Row housing case, which received attention after California Central District Judge David Carter’s preliminary injunction that would have forced Los Angeles to house all currently homeless people in the Los Angeles neighborhood within six months.
Negotiations are continuing in the Skid Row housing case, which received attention after California Central District Judge David Carter’s preliminary injunction that would have forced Los Angeles to house all currently homeless people in the Los Angeles neighborhood within six months.
The lawsuit, from the Skid Row group LA Alliance for Human Rights, sued Los Angeles County and city March 10, 2020, complaining that the government agencies have created a dangerous environment in the neighborhood.
Carter issued his injunction in April, asking for $1 billion to be put into developing Skid Row, and claiming that Skid Row was intentionally created as a destination for the homeless by Los Angeles.
A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed the injunction Sept. 23, stating that Carter had erroneously relied on his own research and inserted his own racial claims into the injunction.
Plaintiffs only had standing on their Americans with Disabilities claim, which did not alone support the sweeping relief in the injunction, the panel said.
The lawsuit continues, with the city attempting to strike the plaintiff’s first cause of action on the basis that it lacks standing.
A Dec. 23 memorandum from the Alliance opposed the city’s motion.
The organization has succeeded in proving that each plaintiff has suffered an injury in fact, which is fairly traceable to actions by the city, and it is likely that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision by this court, a standard which they base on the 2000 case Tyler v. Cuomo.
A Jan. 10 city reply claims the plaintiffs have failed to show how each plaintiff has suffered an injury-in-fact, caused by the city, which is likely to be redressed, a standard for which they cite the 1992 case Lujan v. Defender of Wildlife.
Plaintiffs have failed to identify which plaintiff is asserting what precise claim, and the court does not have the power to control the city’s municipal functions, the city claims.
Elizabeth Mitchell and Matthew Umhofer of Spertus Landes & Umhofer LLP represent the plaintiffs.
Michael Feuer, city attorney; Scott Marcus, chief assistant city attorney; Arlene Hoang, deputy district attorney; and Ryan Salsig, deputy city attorney represent Los Angeles city.
Rodrigo Castro-Silva, county counsel; Lauren Black, assistant county counsel; Ana Wai-Kwan Lai, senior deputy county counsel; Byron McLain of Foley & Lardner, LLP; and Louis Miller and Mira Hashmall of Miller Barondess, LLP represent Los Angeles County.
Case number 2:20-cv-02291-DOC-KES
