U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Consider Health Care Workers’ Challenge to Rescinded New Jersey Vaccine Mandate
- November 17, 2023
The U.S. Supreme Court will not review a challenge to New Jersey executive orders, which are no longer in place, that required health care workers to stay up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations, including boosters.
In June 2022, a federal district court refused to enjoin the requirements, finding plaintiff health care workers were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their constitutional claims and denying them a preliminary injunction. Sczesny v. New Jersey, Civ. No. 22-2314 (GC) (D.N.J. June 7, 2022).
The district court held the vaccination requirements passed muster under rational-basis review, noting “no serious question that the government has a legitimate interest in preventing the spread of COVID-19,” and in “protecting the health of its citizens.” The vaccination requirements were rationally related to the state’s interest in stemming the spread of COVID-19, reducing the risk of serious illness or hospitalization, and maintaining a safe environment for providing health care services, the court said.
The Third Circuit later dismissed the appeal of that decision as moot because New Jersey Governor Philip Murphy had since rescinded the vaccine mandates. The appeals court remanded, however, to the district court to determine whether the challenge itself was moot.
In their petition to the Court, plaintiffs—four nurses who argued the vaccination requirements violated their substantive due process rights—said the appeal of the decision denying them a preliminary injunction was not moot because the state offered no assurances that another mandate would not be reinstated.
Moreover, the questions before the Third Circuit and the Court “are of great constitutional and public importance”—i.e., “the power to reject unwanted medical procedures” and exercise bodily autonomy.
Sczesny v. Murphy, No. 22-2230 (U.S. petition for cert. denied Nov. 13, 2023).