Dr. A et al. v. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul et al.

On September 13, 2021 the Thomas More Society filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of 17 medical care workers, doctors, nurses, a medical technician, and a physician's liaison, residing in the State of New York seeking a temporary restraining order against an unconstitutional Covid-19 vaccine mandate excluding religious exemptions which was issued on August 26, 2021. On September 14, without conducting a hearing, the court granted our plaintiffs temporary restraining order in this case.

On Monday September 20, Judge David N. Hurd issued an order cancelling the preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for September 28. In this same order Judge Hurd extended the TRO until October 12th. The State of New York is directed to submit its brief on Sept. 22.

On October 12th, 2021, Judge Hurd GRANTED the Plaintiffs' motion to preliminary enjoin New York's exclusion of religious accommodations from its health care vaccine mandate. The Court first ruled that under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the New York law is preempted by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which requires employers as a matter of federal law to consider their employees' needs for religious accommodations. The Court also ruled that the law violated the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution, because Governor Hochul singled out religion for disfavored treatment by removing the opportunity for religious exemptions which had been expressly allowed under the previous version of the New York mandate. Judge Hurd also held that the law is not "generally applicable" because it gives favored treatment to those in need of medical accommodations without affording the same opportunities to religious needs, in direct violation of the First Amendment's minimum requirement of equal treatment for religious believers. Judge Hurd also explained that the law is not "narrowly tailored" in part because New York failed to explain why it couldn't follow in the footsteps of nearly every other state with a similar vaccine mandate, including Illinois and California, which expressly allow religious accommodations for health care workers.

And finally, the Court summed up by quoting the Thomas More Society's brief in explaining that "defendants have not shown that granting the same benefit to religious practitioners that was originally included in the August 18 Order 'would impose any more harm--especially when Plaintiffs have been on the front lines of stopping COVID for the past 18 months while donning PPE and exercising other proper protocols in effectively slowing the spread of the disease.' Pls.' Mem. at 20."

Judge Hurd also granted the plaintiffs' motion to remain anonymous by proceeding under pseudonyms such as "Dr. A." and "Nurse J." The plaintiffs so moved out of fear of retaliation and ostracization, especially in the wake of explicit death threats, as cited in the record, wielded recently against health care workers who remain unvaccinated.

Because of a lawsuit the Thomas More Society filed on September 13, 2021, the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York issued an order restraining the New York government’s statewide vaccine mandate law for healthcare workers. However, on October 29, 2021, the Second District Appellate Court vacated that decision and so at this time, the mandate may legally be enforced.

On November 12, 2021, the Thomas More Society, in partnership with the Becket Fund, filed an emergency application with the Hon. Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court for the Second Circuit, requesting entry of an injunction preventing enforcement of the State of New York's ban on religious exemptions for healthcare workers opposed to mandatory COVID vaccination.  In the alternative, the applicants asked that enforcement of New York's rule be stayed, and/or the application be treated as a petition for certiorari and granted, so that the high Court could promptly address on its merits docket the important issues presented.  In either case, applicants were seeking an administrative stay during the emergency briefing and deliberations on the emergency application.

On November 12, Justice Sotomayor requested a Response to our emergency application for relief from the New York order that categorically denies religious exemptions from the Covid-19 vaccine mandate. The Justice then set a deadline for the filing, namely, Tuesday, November 16, 2021, by 4 p.m. EST. On Dec. 13, 2021 the U.S. Supreme Court denied our emergency request and Justice Gorsuch wrote a dissent.

On January 30, 2022, New York healthcare workers with good-faith religious objections to COVID-19 vaccination filed a renewed motion for emergency and preliminary injunctive relief in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, against New York’s bar on religious exemptions from its COVID-19 vaccine mandate in health care. The filing is in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in January upholding the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Medicaid- and Medicare-participating healthcare facilities (“CMS Mandate”), which Mandate the Supreme Court acknowledged requires a process for seeking “religious exemptions.”

Thomas More Society attorneys filed the renewed motion along with an Amended Complaint on behalf of 16 of the 17 original New York doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals with religious objections to the COVID vaccine and have either lost their professional positions or have been coerced into initial vaccination and now are being subjected to coercion to take a booster.

On February 15, 2022 Thomas More Society filed a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of whether New York's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers violates the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution to the extent it forbids religious exemptions.

Copies of the papers, as filed, are appended hereto.