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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a petition by seven Maine healthcare workers who were denied religious exemptions for vaccination in 2021 and fired for not complying with the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
New York attorney Sujata Gibson said that dismissal of the case as moot is part of a nationwide trend in similar cases challenging the denial of religious exemption requests.
“The strategy nationwide on vaccine mandate cases has been to repeal these mandates to moot cases when executive agencies fear an adverse ruling and then move to dismiss the case as moot,” Gibson said. “The Circuit Courts have been far too eager to moot these cases. We need the Supreme Court to clarify this law.”
California attorney Rick Jaffe agreed that courts seem reluctant to recognize religious exemptions as a constitutional right.
“The reality is that no federal appellate court has recognized a constitutional or statutory right to a religious exemption from vaccine mandates — not for healthcare workers, not for anyone,” he said. “As of now, this right simply doesn’t exist in binding law, and the Supreme Court appears content to leave it that way.”
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit religious organization that represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement, “We are pleased that the unlawful COVID shot mandate has been rescinded. However, Gov. Janet Mills and her agencies should be held accountable in court for the harm this mandate inflicted on health care workers and the citizens of Maine.”
‘Competing tensions’ pit individual liberties against state’s interests
The Maine workers filed the lawsuit in 2021, claiming the vaccine mandate violated the First Amendment’s free speech provisions and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection and due process clauses. The complaint named several Maine officials as defendants, including Sarah Gagné-Holmes, commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, and Mills.
In 2021, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine denied the petitioners’ request for a temporary restraining order and injunction against the defendants. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit upheld the denials, and the Supreme Court rejected the petitioners’ request for an emergency injunction later that year.
Earlier this year, the 1st Circuit dismissed the case as moot because Maine had repealed its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers in 2023. Maine stopped recognizing religious exemptions for vaccination in 2019.
In their petition to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs sought to reverse the dismissal, claiming that Maine “suspiciously” rescinded the COVID-19 vaccine mandate to sidestep litigation and “evade constitutional scrutiny.”
In its dismissal, the U.S. Supreme Court did not comment or rule on the merits of the case.
Liberty Counsel did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Ray Flores, senior outside counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said he was not surprised by the Supreme Court’s move.
“Once the COVID-19 ‘immunization’ requirement ended, the Maine District Court properly granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the remaining causes of action since the case was moot,” Flores said. “I don’t believe that the 1st Circuit sidestepped religious rights or the vaccine issue. The Supreme Court had good reason to deny the petition.”
Vermont attorney John Klar said the case highlighted “competing tensions between religious or other individual liberties and the state’s legitimate interest in public safety.”
“It seems the Supreme Court generally gives deference to the medical community and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and resists considering the dangers of an inappropriately or unethically authorized vaccine,” Klar said. “It also appears the Court gives a higher level of deference for state action when it is healthcare workers on the front lines.”
Last year, the Supreme Court declined to hear another religious exemption case, challenging school vaccination requirements in Connecticut. In 2022, the Supreme Court rejected a similar case from New York.
Gibson said the Supreme Court “rarely weighs in” on such cases, and “their failure to do so does not set ‘precedent’ for any other cases.”
“However, the fact that they did not weigh in means that the 1st Circuit’s decision stands, further supporting the notion that a case can become ‘moot’ if the state changes a regulation. This is still fairly narrow. Any case with damages cannot be mooted by a change in the law. But it is frustrating and unjust,” Gibson said.
After Maine lifted its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers in 2023, employers such as MaineGeneral Health, which was named in the lawsuit, offered to rehire nurses who had previously been fired because of their unvaccinated status.
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Four states deny religious exemptions for school vaccines
California, Maine, New York and Connecticut are the only states that don’t allow religious or philosophical exemptions to school vaccine mandates.
Earlier this year, West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, issued an executive order recognizing religious exemptions for schoolchildren. However, the state’s Department of Education later directed schools to ignore the order.
Earlier this month, a coalition of over 40 health and religious freedom groups and individuals — including CHD — sent a letter to the White House’s Religious Liberty Commission, urging it to take “immediate action” to address “critical violations” of religious freedom in the four states that “deny religious exemptions” to school vaccine mandates and “cause discriminatory practices in healthcare.”
Gibson said religious exemptions “are under threat” in the U.S., as part of continued efforts by some states “to repeal long-standing religious exemption options for school vaccine requirements.”
“During the pandemic some states, like Maine, tried to go a step further and prohibit religious exemptions in healthcare facilities — which, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, are required to allow for religious accommodation unless an employer can prove with real evidence that it is too dangerous or too expensive for each individual denied,” Gibson said.
“While there is momentum to try to chip away at religious exemptions, the good news is that we’ve seen massive public uprising about these efforts, particularly after COVID, and these efforts have been largely successful,” Gibson added.
Related articles in The Defender
- Confusion Surrounds Draft Executive Order on Eve of First Religious Liberty Commission Hearing
- West Virginia Schools Ordered to Defy Governor on Religious Exemptions
- Maine Hospital Fired Nurses for Refusing COVID Shots — Now It’s Begging Them to Come Back
- Supreme Court Rejects Appeal Challenging New York’s Removal of Religious Exemption for Schoolchildren
- The Case Against New York’s Repeal of Religious Exemption — What’s Next?
