Court affirms stay on vaccine mandate; OSHA prepares ratification

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Friday reaffirmed its prior temporary injunction against implementation or enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s emergency temporary standard mandating COVID-19 vaccination and testing. 

The court found that the ETS was “under-inclusive” and “overbroad “because it failed to consider that COVID-19 is “more dangerous to some employees than to other employees.”

This week, the Department of Labor prepared a ratification of the rule, in which Secretary of Labor Martin Walsh writes, “Out of an abundance of caution, to avoid any doubt as to its validity, I have independently evaluated the Interim Final Rule and the basis for adopting it,” seeking to affirm and ratify the rule. The ratification is slated to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday.

“In my considered and independent judgment, the Interim Final Rule was and remains necessary to protect unvaccinated employees against the grave danger of exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19,” Secretary Walsh wrote.

The court decision has no effect on previous vaccine mandates applying in healthcare settings or to federal contractors and subcontractors.