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The federal government has been ordered to halt all implementation and enforcement of its COVID-19 vaccine and testing mandate until a thorough investigation is completed. The order comes on the heels of a request by Louisiana business owner Brandon Trosclair, who along with a group of employees from Texas filed a civil suit against the action.
The court has ordered the Biden Administration to halt all enforcement of the mandate while legal challenges work their way through the federal court system. The ruling issued by the 5th Circuit was in direct response to the request for extended stay filed by the national law firm the Liberty Justice Center and the Louisiana-based Pelican Institute for Public Policy.
Trosclair, who employs nearly 500 people across 15 grocery stores in Louisiana and Mississippi, spoke of the decision.

“Today’s ruling marks a tremendous success because the court recognizes how this mandate would impair our liberty and infringe on our constitutional rights. I am proud to be in this fight on behalf of not just my employees, but all Americans. It’s wrong for the federal government to order me to interfere in the private medical decisions of my team members or to impose insurmountable costs on my businesses. I look forward to taking my fight all the way to the Highest Court.”
Patrick Hughes, president and co-founder of the Liberty Justice Center, says the ruling is “a complete and total victory” for the firm’s clients and for all Americans at this stage in the fight against “this illegal mandate.

“The court rightly recognizes that the federal government has grossly exceeded its authority and is right to grant our request for extended stay. This mandate represents the greatest overreach by the federal government in a generation. It is illegal and unconstitutional and we are committed to ensuring it never sees the light of day.”
Sarah Harbison, General Counsel at the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, agreed with the assessment.

“The Fifth Circuit’s decision to put a stop to the Biden Administration’s illegal vaccine mandate is a huge win for liberty and cements the reality that this mandate is an overreach by the federal government that would cause irreversible damage to American businesses and workers.”
The three-judge panel from the 5th Circuit explained the decision.

“The mandate’s stated impetus – a purported ‘emergency’ that the entire globe has now endured for nearly two years, and which OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) itself spent nearly two months responding to – is unavailing as well.

“The mandate threatens to substantially burden the liberty interests of reluctant individual recipients put to a choice between their job(s) and their jab(s).”

The panel of judges goes on to say in the decision that it “is critical to note that the mandate makes no serious attempt to explain why OSHA and the President himself were against vaccine mandates before they were for one here.

“OSHA’s attempt to shoehorn an airborne virus that is both widely present in society (and thus not particular to any workplace) and non-life-threatening to a vast majority of employees into a neighboring phrase connoting toxicity and poisonousness is yet another transparent stretch,” states the decision, in part.

The Order to Halt also states that “health agencies do not make housing policy, and occupational safety administrations do not make health policy.”

The petitioners were granted a stay pending judicial review of the underlying motions for a permanent injunction.

It was further ordered that OSHA take no steps to implement or enforce the mandate until further court order.

Meanwhile, several states have filed similar lawsuits, making up a coalition that includes Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

The Tennessee Attorney General along with six other attorneys general filed a petition on Nov 12 with the 6^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the OSHA vaccine mandate for private sector employees.

It is unclear, at this time, if area hospitals will continue to abide by the mandate to vaccinate so that they may keep their Medicare/Medicaid status.

More on this story can be found on the Claiborne Progress website.