Liberty Counsel will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review Alicia Lowe, et al., v. Janet Mills on behalf of seven Maine health care workers who were unlawfully denied religious accommodations and fired due to their religious beliefs during the state’s unconstitutional COVID-19 mandate. The First Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the health care workers’ case today without a judgment on the merits stating their challenge is moot since the state repealed the mandate.
This ruling conflicts with other decisions from the Circuit Courts of Appeal which have ruled in favor of health care workers fired for refusing the COVID shot, in which SCOTUS should be help resolve the split.
The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision to dismiss the case on mootness grounds, holding that the state’s rescission of the shot mandate meant the plaintiffs were no longer suffering any injury. However, the state rescinded the mandate right before the health care workers were going to have their first day in court, which meant that the state to this point has avoided any accountability for its unlawful and unconstitutional discrimination against religion.
The Court of Appeals said the health care workers have not properly challenged the text of the shot mandate, despite the fact the complaint stated numerous times—in every count—that it was a facial and as-applied challenge to the state’s unconstitutional and unlawful decision to prohibit religious accommodations to the shot mandate. The First Amendment requires that employers accommodate health care workers sincerely held religious beliefs, but the state prohibited any such religious accommodations. That is unlawful, and Liberty Counsel will ask the Supreme Court to correct it.
The Court also said there was no evidence the state rescinded the mandate as a litigation tactic, even though it came immediately after the First Circuit Court of Appeals’ prior decision entitling the health care workers to discovery and a trial on the merits. The state only rescinded the mandate to avoid having its unconstitutional shot mandate struck down.
And, to top it off, the Court said, “The appellants have also not shown that ‘a realistic threat’ exists that there would be insufficient time to obtain a judgment on the merits before the repeal of the mandate.” Except, it has been three and half years and there has been no merits determination, so there is not just the threat—but a reality—that there was not time to obtain a merits determination. The law requires unlawful and unconstitutional government action to be subject to judicial scrutiny, and the First Circuit’s decision prevented the health care workers from obtaining that review.
Liberty Counsel will file a petition for certiorari on a similar Title VII case from New York in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Liberty Counsel will also file a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to review this case and resolve the split on this mootness question concerning the recissions of these COVID shot mandates and the harms they caused to these health care workers.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court is the next step to obtain relief for these health care workers against the illegal actions by the State of Maine. This case is not moot. Terminating employees who have sincerely held religious objections to experimental COVID shots violates federal law. Maine’s mandates caused irreparable harm by forcing people to choose between their faith and their livelihood, and there needs to be a permanent injunction in place to prevent this from happening again in Maine.”
