The Supreme Court declined a request to block Maine’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare works on Friday.
Conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito dissented in the 6-3 decision to reject a bid to stop the requirement while litigation continues to play out in the appeals process.
The vaccine mandate, announced by Gov. Janet Mills in August, requires all hospital and nursing home workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or risk losing their jobs.
Maine’s mandate does not offer any religious exemption or option to submit to testing for healthcare workers and was the impetus for several healthcare workers to sue.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston declined to stop the vaccine directive from taking effect earlier this month. The state said it will begin enforcement of the mandate on Friday.
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“Where many other States have adopted religious exemptions, Maine has charted a different course,” Gorsuch wrote in the dissent. “There, healthcare workers who have served on the front line of a pandemic for the last 18 months are now being fired and their practices shuttered.”
“All for adhering to their constitutionally protected religious beliefs. Their plight is worthy of our attention. I would grant relief,” Gorsuch added.
The plaintiffs are represented by the Liberty Counsel, which filed the lawsuit in federal court in Maine in August, claiming to represent over 2,000 healthcare workers who are against being forced to vaccinate against COVID-19.
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“This case is far from over. We will file a petition with the Supreme Court to review the merits of the case after full briefing and argument,” Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver said Friday.
“The High Court’s decision to not grant the emergency relief is not a ruling on the merits. Maine has no authority to order employers to disobey federal Title VII employment law. While we should ultimately prevail on the merits, the tragedy is that today many health care heroes are being terminated. Since 2019, Maine has suffered from a shortage of health care workers and that shortage will increase as of today. The people who will suffer are not only the health care workers but patients who need care,” he added.
