Today, the Supreme Court of the United States announced their decision in the OSHA vaccine mandate case. In a 6-3 decision, SCOTUS held that OSHA did not have the authority to mandate vaccinations or testing for private businesses. TPPF, representing five Texas staffing agencies, had sued the Biden administration over the mandate and obtained a first-in-the-nation stay from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. After all of the challenges were consolidated, by rule, at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, that court dissolved the stay. Today, the Supreme Court overturned the Sixth Circuit decision, re-instating the stay of the mandate nationwide.
In its opinion, the Court found that “[A] vaccine mandate is strikingly unlike the workplace regulations that OSHA has typically imposed. A vaccination, after all, cannot be undone at the end of the workday. Contrary to the dissent’s contention, imposing a vaccine mandate on 84 million Americans in response to a worldwide pandemic is simply not part of what the agency was built for.”
“It was clear from the beginning that this mandate was illegal and unconstitutional,” said Robert Henneke, general counsel and Executive Director at TPPF. “Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that OSHA does not have the power to require 83 million Americans to get vaccinated as a condition of keeping their jobs.”
“The Biden administration admitted that using OSHA to impose this mandate was the ‘ultimate workaround.’ In a 6-3 decision, the Court saw through this cynical tactic,” said Matt Miller, TPPF Senior Attorney. “The Constitution does not give the federal government the power to force people to get vaccinated.”
Read the full opinion here.