A group of federal workers made up from multiple states have now sued the Biden Administration over President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 vaccine mandates that are aimed at federal workers and federal contractors.
Last week, The Federal Practice Group, a Washington, D.C. law firm, filed the official complaint against the Biden Administration.
The majority of the 50 federal workers who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit are employees at the Department of Homeland Security. Other plaintiffs work for the Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Commerce, Agriculture, U.S.A.I.D., and other federal agencies.
On September 9th, Biden issued Executive Orders 14042 and 14043, requiring federal employees and contractors provide proof of vaccination or face the ramifications of potential termination.
The lawsuit differentiates between the vaccine that has been approved — Comirnaty — and the vaccine that is actually being used in the United States. The FDA considers them interchangeable, while the plaintiffs argue that they are not.
“On August 23, 2021, the FDA licensed a COVID-19 vaccine originally developed by BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH, a German company, to be jointly manufactured with Pfizer. The companies were authorized to market the vaccine under the name ‘COMIRNATY.’ Although co-manufactured by Pfizer, COMIRNATY is legally distinct from the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine that was, and is, available in the United States; the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19, which is the only Pfizer vaccine available in the United States, remains under emergency use authorization,” the lawsuit says.
“In rushing to force COVID-19 vaccinations on the federal workforce, the President’s edicts violate longstanding statutory prohibitions against inoculations with unlicensed vaccines, as well as the individual rights of government employees and contractors under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act,” the lawsuit says. “Accordingly, plaintiffs who are representative of nearly every Federal Agency respectfully request relief from this Court in the form of injunctive relief stopping this illegal and unnecessarily broad and wide-ranging program.”
The group’s lawsuit acknowledges that vaccine mandate violates federal workers’ rights through its execution of a blanket termination penalty for those refusing the vaccine, rather than the typical protocol of an individual review of each employee’s case and required legal accommodations. Importantly, another point is that is unlawful for a federal employer to require the details of their employees’ medical history.
The lawsuit goes on to state that firing employees who have any disease, including COVID-19, is prohibited by federal law because it falls under the category of a disability. It goes on to argue that a large number of employees have already been infected with Covid-19 and successfully recovered, thus developing a level of natural immunity. This claim is backed from a study from the Cleveland Clinic, which concluded that individuals who were infected with Covid-19 did not suffer reinfection, and that “ultimately, Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.”
“Both the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA preclude employers from discriminating against federal employees and federal government contractors on the basis of an actual or perceived disability. The Acts further preclude employers from conducting disability-related inquiries of employees that are not shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity. 29 C.F.R. § 1630.14(c). An inquiry is determined to be job related and consistent with business necessity when the employer has a reasonable belief, based on objective evidence that employee will pose a direct threat due to a medical condition,” the complaint says.
Biden’s order violates the” informed consent” regulations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the lawsuit claims.
November 22nd is the current deadline set by the federal Safer Federal Workforce Task Force, for all to comply with the vaccine mandate.
