Another judge refuses to stop Mills' vaccine mandate for health care workers
Oct. 22—A Maine judge is the latest jurist to reject efforts to keep the state's vaccine mandate for health care workers from being enforced in the coming days.
Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy on Friday said what federal judges have said so far in refusing to halt enforcement of the mandate — that those attempting to stop the rule have not proven that they would ultimately prevail on the merits of the case. She also said the mandate and the way it was implemented did not violate Maine law or the U.S. Constitution.
It was the fourth time in less than 10 days that a judge has refused to stop the vaccine mandate from being enforced.
Maine's mandate requires health care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 29 or risk losing their jobs. There's an exemption in the mandate for those who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons.
A coalition called the Alliance Against Health Care Mandates formed to oppose Maine's vaccine requirement for health care workers, and filed a lawsuit in early September in Kennebec County Superior Court in Augusta. Maine Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew and Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah are defendants.
The group filed its lawsuit as another legal challenge to the mandate was starting to make its way through the federal court system.
The state-level case did not argue as the federal cases did that the mandate should include a religious exemption. Rather, it focused on the state's rulemaking process.
In the federal case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on Tuesday refused to issue an emergency injunction to halt the mandate but allowed opponents to seek the injunction again if a federal appeals court in Boston ruled against them. That happened later that same day when the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston upheld a Maine federal judge's ruling that found the mandate constitutional. Plaintiffs in that case have already appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Murphy's decision is expected to be appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
