The mandate is protected because officials could have concluded they would protect the health and safety of workers and students, the majority said.
A federal appeals court on July 31 dismissed a lawsuit against the COVID-19 vaccine mandate imposed by the second-largest school district in the United States.
The mandate, put into place in 2021 by the Los Angeles Unified School District and rescinded in 2023, was constitutional because officials “could have reasonably concluded that COVID-19 vaccines would protect the health and safety of its employees and students,” U.S. Circuit Judge Mark J. Bennett wrote for the majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The Health Freedom Defense Fund and other groups challenged the mandate, arguing that it violated constitutional rights such as the right to refuse medical treatment. Because COVID-19 vaccines did not prevent infection or transmission, instead only reducing symptoms, they are medical treatments and not traditional vaccines, the organizations told the court. That means the mandate is not protected by a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld a smallpox vaccine mandate, they said.
A split Ninth Circuit panel agreed in 2024, finding that the record did not clearly show the vaccines prevented transmission and therefore did not fall under the 1905 ruling, known as Jacobson.
Los Angeles officials asked the full court to consider the case, resulting in Thursday’s ruling.
The majority said in the new decision that Jacobson gave the power to legislators and government officials to legally impose vaccine mandates, provided they rationally conclude the mandated vaccines protect the health and safety of the public.
“Whether a vaccine protects the public’s health and safety is committed to policymakers, not a court or a jury. Further, alleged scientific uncertainty over a vaccine’s efficacy is irrelevant under Jacobson,” Bennett said. “Jacobson simply does not allow debate in the courts over whether a mandated vaccine prevents the spread of disease. Jacobson makes clear that it is up to the political branches, within the parameters of rational basis review, to decide whether a vaccine effectively protects public health and safety.”
Judges reviewed the Los Angeles mandate to ensure it had a rational basis and concluded it does.
