{"id":1958070,"date":"2023-06-27T11:37:02","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T15:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/court-reversal-on-covid-vaccine-mandates-provides-a-roadmap-for-fighting-medical-tyranny\/"},"modified":"2023-06-27T11:40:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T15:40:27","slug":"court-reversal-on-covid-vaccine-mandates-provides-a-roadmap-for-fighting-medical-tyranny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/court-reversal-on-covid-vaccine-mandates-provides-a-roadmap-for-fighting-medical-tyranny\/","title":{"rendered":"Court reversal on Covid vaccine mandates offers a path to combat medical tyranny."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcourt-reversal-on-covid-vaccine-mandates-provides-a-roadmap-for-fighting-medical-tyranny%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1958070&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"article-content\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Revival of Case Against Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate<\/h2>\n<p>Last week, a three-judge panel on California\u2019s Second District Court of Appeals revived a case brought by a group of Los Angeles firefighters who challenged the City of Los Angeles\u2019 Covid-19 vaccine mandate. The decision reversed a lower court\u2019s ruling that dismissed the case because the judge found the firefighters\u2019 allegations regarding the safety and efficacy of the Covid shots implausible, ignoring the settled rule that, at the pleading stage, judges must accept all factual allegations as true.<\/p>\n<p>(Disclaimer: I am one of the lawyers representing the firefighters in this case and the lawyer primarily responsible for drafting the appeal.)<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1693332809\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-20b5808ca9843ee36784b56b6e3215d6 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-20b5808ca9843ee36784b56b6e3215d6\"><\/div>\n<p>Although unpublished, the appellate court\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courts.ca.gov\/opinions\/nonpub\/B320569.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">53-page opinion<\/a> marks a pivotal moment in the fallout from Covid policy. As I have written <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/04\/23\/aclu-goes-missing-in-civil-liberties-hour-of-need\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">before<\/a>, leftist institutions such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the California judiciary have always <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-jen-psaki-lies-about-ron-desantis-and-coronavirus-vaccinations\/\" title=\"Fact Check: Jen Psaki Lies About Ron DeSantis and Coronavirus Vaccinations\">championed individual freedom<\/a>, even in emergency situations (\u201cemergency\u201d being a term of art that is subject to manipulation, of course). In fact, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/appeals-court-ny-democrats-illegally-drew-congressional-districts\/\" title=\"Appeals Court: NY Democrats Illegally Drew Congressional Districts\">lower-court judge<\/a> in the firefighters\u2019 case, Michael Linfield, wrote a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Freedom-Under-Fire-Civil-Liberties\/dp\/0896083748\">book<\/a> about this. He quoted two of the United States\u2019 most liberal jurists, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, who wrote in a famous dissent that \u201cgrave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the left abandoned their principles during the pandemic. We might have expected that from politicians like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden, establishment puppets who lacked the discipline or intellectual curiosity to question public health alarmists. (I litigated one of the first successful lockdown-related cases against Newsom, for a coalition of gym owners who challenged California\u2019s arbitrary closure of gyms during the early stages of the pandemic.) Judges should have known better. After all, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courts.ca.gov\/documents\/ca_code_judicial_ethics.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">California Code of Judicial Ethics<\/a> requires that they \u201cuphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary.\u201d It requires that they \u201cperform the duties of judicial office impartially, competently and diligently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At minimum, that meant applying California\u2019s pleading standards faithfully. Those standards are famously low, lower than the federal standards, which the Supreme Court, led by its conservatives, keeps heightening. In a California state court, a plaintiff who pays the filing fee and alleges facts that, assumed to be true, state any plausible claim, gets to gather evidence and present that evidence to a judge or jury. He gets his day in court.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Criticism of Appellate Court<\/h2>\n<p>Linfield did not do that in the firefighters\u2019 case. The appellate court criticized the judge\u2019s efforts to circumvent California\u2019s pleading rules in taking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/wex\/judicial_notice\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">judicial notice<\/a> that the Covid shots are \u201csafe and effective.\u201d The appellate court noted that \u201cthe court did not explain what it meant by \u2018safe\u2019 or \u2018effective.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2fd9275203b9cb5663ee5383336ae49a fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2fd9275203b9cb5663ee5383336ae49a\"><\/div>\n<p>For example, many of the government documents the City of L.A. had relied on in the case said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dems-lost-all-credibility-on-social-distancing-after-biden-celebrations\/\" title=\"Dems Lost All Credibility On Social Distancing After Biden Celebrations\">public health officials<\/a> did not know how effective the Covid shots would be, especially against the omicron variant, much less future Covid variants. And, as to the shots\u2019 safety, the court of appeal explained that \u201cthe documents the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/court-reversal-on-covid-vaccine-mandates-provides-a-roadmap-for-fighting-medical-tyranny\/\" title=\"Court reversal on Covid vaccine mandates offers a path to combat medical tyranny.\">trial court judicially noticed repeatedly stated<\/a> the vaccines were \u2018safe,\u2019 but they also acknowledged \u2018common side effects\u2019 and \u2018rare\u2019 but \u2018serious safety problems.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That echoes something my partners and I said throughout the pandemic: How can a medical treatment be \u201csafe and effective\u201d if there are known side effects and potentially serious safety issues? How can it be unreasonable for people \u2014 especially firefighters, who must meet rigorous fitness standards \u2014 to say they do not want to put that substance in their body? And how can judges, especially judges in California, which has a state constitutional right to privacy that explicitly protects a person\u2019s interest in bodily autonomy, ignore those concerns? How can they kick those people out of court before they have had a chance to litigate?<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t think there is any one reason for that \u2014 although in Linfield\u2019s case, political bias seemed apparent (he compared people who question the safety and effectiveness of the Covid shots to Trump supporters who question the 2020 election results). This decision should set them straight. Although unpublished, it reads like a published opinion and provides a roadmap for people to challenge Covid mandates in California.<\/p>\n<p>The opinion also clarifies something that has been lost in the details of Covid litigation: State and federal law are not identical. They may be similar, but they are not the same, especially in the early stages of litigation. Those differences can be dispositive in a tough case like this one.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-bfecc3b3effa8d1b38b0fd922d4beb12 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-bfecc3b3effa8d1b38b0fd922d4beb12\"><\/div>\n<p>Finally, remember that appeals provide an important check on arbitrary exercises of judicial power. They can take time but, with the right lawyers and judges who care about the law, they are often worth it. And with the Covid pandemic behind us, they should provide us with more decisions like this one, decisions that dig into the details and that properly recognize the scope of individual freedom in America, especially as it relates to personal autonomy.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, California&#8217;s Second District Court of Appeals revived a case against Los Angeles&#8217; Covid-19 vaccine mandate. Los Angeles firefighters challenged the mandate, and the three-judge panel overturned a lower court&#8217;s dismissal. The firefighters&#8217; concerns about safety and efficacy will now be reconsidered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1334,"featured_media":1958071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1958070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1958070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1958071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1958070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1958070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1958070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}