A federal appeals court on July 31 dismissed a lawsuit against the COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed by the second-largest school district in the United States.
The mandate, put into place in 2021 by the Los Angeles Unified School District and rescinded in 2023, was constitutional because officials “could have reasonably concluded that COVID-19 vaccines would protect the health and safety of its employees and students,” U.S. Circuit Judge Mark J. Bennett wrote for the majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The Health Freedom Defense Fund and other groups challenged the mandate, arguing that it violated constitutional rights such as the right to refuse medical treatment. Because COVID-19 vaccines did not prevent infection or transmission, instead only reducing symptoms, they are medical treatments and not traditional vaccines, the organizations told the court. That means the mandate is not protected by a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld a smallpox vaccine mandate, they said.
A split Ninth Circuit panel agreed in 2024, finding that the record did not clearly show the vaccines prevented transmission and therefore did not fall under the 1905 ruling, known as Jacobson.
Los Angeles officials asked the full court to consider the case, resulting in Thursday’s ruling.
The majority said in the new decision that Jacobson gave the power to legislators and government officials to legally impose vaccine mandates, provided they rationally conclude the mandated vaccines protect the health and safety of the public.
“Whether a vaccine protects the public’s health and safety is committed to policymakers, not a court or a jury. Further, alleged scientific uncertainty over a vaccine’s efficacy is irrelevant under Jacobson,” Bennett said. “Jacobson simply does not allow debate in the courts over whether a mandated vaccine prevents the spread of disease. Jacobson makes clear that it is up to the political branches, within the parameters of rational basis review, to decide whether a vaccine effectively protects public health and safety.”
Judges reviewed the Los Angeles mandate to ensure it had a rational basis and concluded it does.
The plaintiffs themselves acknowledged in their complaint that COVID-19 vaccines lessen the severity of symptoms. From that, officials “could have reasonably determined that the vaccines would protect the health of its employees,” according to the majority.
Judges also pointed to how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in 2021 that COVID-19 vaccines were “highly effective at protecting vaccinated people against symptomatic and severe COVID-19” and that people deemed fully vaccinated were “less likely to become infected” and less likely to contract and spread the virus that causes COVID-19.
In a dissent joined by one other judge, U.S. Circuit Judge Kenneth Kiyul Lee said that Jacobson did not cover the Los Angeles mandate because plaintiffs “have plausibly claimed—at least at the pleading stage where we must accept the truth of the allegations—that the COVID-19 vaccine mitigates serious symptoms but does not ‘prevent transmission or contraction of COVID-19.'”
The Jacobson case dealt with a mandated vaccine that was widely accepted to prevent both transmission and infection of smallpox, while people who have received COVID-19 vaccines have repeatedly caught COVID-19 and transmitted the disease, Lee said.
“The majority’s opinion comes perilously close to giving the government carte blanche to require a vaccine or even medical treatment against people’s will so long as it asserts—even if incorrectly—that it would promote ‘public health and safety,'” he said.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has more than 429,000 students and is the second-largest school district in the nation, said the district is aware of the ruling. “We remain committed to complying with the law and continuing to serve the best interests of our employees, students and families,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
Leslie Manookian, president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, wrote on X that she was disappointed with the decision and that the organization was considering its next steps.