As in 2020, a major theme of the past year has been the Covid-19 pandemic, and the response of employers and governments, as the economy began to re-open and vaccines became widely available. But Covid-19 litigation was not the only activity in the labor and employment law arena in 2021.
FEDERAL VACCINE MANDATE LITIGATION
The saga of the OSHA “vaccine-or-testing” Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) has been extensively documented on this Blog. However, as the new year dawns, the story is merely entering a new chapter.
In the first week of 2022, the Supreme Court held oral argument on the two Covid-19 vaccine mandates and issued two unsurprising opinions on January 13th. First, the Court overturned the decision of the Sixth Circuit and reinstated the Fifth Circuit’s stay of the OSHA ETS, regarding vaccine mandates for private employers with 100 or more employees. Although the Court did not strike down the ETS, as a practical matter, the ETS in its current form is dead. OSHA has stated that it will not enforce the ETS as currently written (although OSHA has indicated that it will still hold employers to the OSH Act’s “general duty” clause in ensuring workplace safety). In its opinion, the Court stated forcefully that if it reviewed the ETS in the merits, the ETS would be struck down. Importantly, the concurring opinion written by Justice Gorsuch (and joined by Justices Thomas and Alito) relied upon the “major questions” doctrine. Justice Gorsuch described the doctrine as “...
Nana, a former member of the group After School, announced the progress of the investigation into the home invasion robbery and resented that the perpetrator continued to make false claims without ...