Fed workers vaccine mandate OKd: Feds-for-Medical-Freedom vs. Joseph Biden .pdf

In Feds for Medical Freedom v. Biden a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction by a Trump appointee District Judge Jeffrey Brown.

The majority allowed the vaccine mandate for federal employees to go forward.

On September 9, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14043, which mandates COVID-19 vaccination for all executive branch employees, subject to medical and religious exceptions. Several plaintiffs filed suit, alleging that the President exceeded his authority. The district court found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim and that the equities favored them. It therefore preliminarily enjoined enforcement of the Order nationwide. The Government appealed. 

For the following reasons, we VACATE the district court’s preliminary injunction and 

REMAND to the district court with instructions to DISMISS for lack of jurisdiction.

The dissent argued:

[The Civil Service Reform Act] Section 7513 does not apply to plaintiffs. First, it applies to federal employees facing proposed actions by “an employing agency”. 5 U.S.C. § 7513. CSRA’s language, which the majority references at 9, also refers to action taken by an “agency”. See id. Here, there is no agency action. Rather, the President is attempting to impose a sweeping mandate against the federal civilian workforce. Again, no adverse action has been proposed or taken by an agency. In short, Elgin does not control the case at hand. Section 7513 references individual employees; here, the President seeks to require an entire class of employees to be vaccinated or be subject to an adverse action. Simply put, CSRA does not cover pre-enforcement employment actions, especially concerning 2.1 million federal civilian employees. The district court, therefore, had subject-matter jurisdiction to hear plaintiffs’ claims.