Federal Judge: Biden Administration Can't Require Healthcare Workers To Get Vaccinated

DECEMBER 1, 2021—A federal district court in Monroe on Tuesday said a federal agency had overstepped its authority and temporarily ended the requirement that millions of healthcare workers nationwide get vaccinated before Monday, Dec. 6.

"There is no question that mandating a vaccine to 10.3 million healthcare workers is something that should be done by Congress, not a government agency. It is not clear that even an Act of Congress mandating a vaccine would be constitutional," wrote U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty sitting in Monroe for the Western District of Louisiana.

He expanded his order to include all states but those that have already enjoined the rule.

His 34-page opinion likely will be reviewed by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court down the line.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services had argued that efforts to entice voluntary vaccinations had failed and that hospitals were quickly overwhelmed by COVID patients who had not been inoculated.

President Joe Biden initially did not think vaccines should be mandatory. He changed his mind on Sept. 9 and announced his intention to require healthcare employees who treated patients at facilities accepting Medicare and Medicaid dollars to be vaccinated against COVID-19. CMS released the rules on Nov. 5.

Doughty found that CMS didn't follow the proper procedures, such as gathering public comment, to establish a new rule.

"It took CMS almost two months, from September 9, 2021, to November 5, 2021, to prepare the interim final rule at issue. Evidently, the situation was not so urgent that notice and comment were not required," Doughty wrote. "If human nature and history teach anything, it is that civil liberties face grave risks when governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency. During a pandemic such as this one, it is even more important to safeguard the separation of powers set forth in our Constitution to avoid erosion of our liberties."

Doughty turned to a recent 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision to stall another federal agency from requiring vaccinations at companies with a workforce of 99 employees or more. He wrote that the 5th Circuit opinion suggests that the challenge of the healthcare inoculation mandate would be successful.

"This matter will ultimately be decided by a higher court than this one. However, it is important to preserve the status quo in this case. The liberty interests of the unvaccinated requires nothing less," Doughty wrote.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry along with the Republican attorneys general in Montana, Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia, filed the lawsuit on Nov. 15.

"While our fight is far from over, I am pleased the Court granted preliminary relief against the President's unconstitutional and immoral attack on not only our healthcare workers but also the access to healthcare services for our poor and elderly," Landry said in a prepared statement.

Doughty, 62, was nominated to the federal bench in August 2017 by President Donald Trump.

Since 2009, Doughty had been a state district judge in Franklin, Richland, and West Carroll parishes and then on a state appellate court. Prior to joining the bench, he was a assistant district attorney in northeast Louisiana.

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