Vaccine mandate: Multi-circuit lottery winner announced

On Monday we told you about a multi-circuit lottery that would consolidate all the lawsuits over the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The winner of the lottery would hear the consolidated litigation.

Well, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation conducted the lottery, and the winner is …

Before we get to the winner, the good news for the vaccine mandate: The winner isn’t the 5^th circuit court, which most likely would have doomed the vaccine mandate.

Now, on to business.

The winner is …

The 6^th circuit court is the lucky winner!

Now, the 34 lawsuits challenging the vaccine mandate will be decided by the 6^th circuit court.

For proponents of the mandate, this might not be much better than the 5^th circuit court winning.

The 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Cincinnati, leans more to the conservative side of issues. Reason: Republican presidents appointed most of the judges. Specifically, there are 11 Republican-appointed judges and five Democratic appointed judges. A three-judge panel will hear the case first. However, who those three judges will be has yet to be determined.

In its 50-year history, OSHA has issued 10 emergency standards. Six of them were contested in court and only one made it through.

Now, the Biden administration must prove a “grave danger” necessitated the emergency temporary standard (ETS).

The last word?

This decision isn’t likely to be the final word. While the three-judge circuit panel will hear the argument, whichever side comes out on the losing end can request to be heard by all the judges in that circuit in a separate hearing, as well as asked for a Supreme Court review, according to Politico.

While vaccine mandates are extremely controversial, 56% of employees would support their employer if it imposed a vaccine mandate in the workplace, according to a recent Gallup poll. And that’s up from 46% in May.

We’ll keep you updated on this controversial topic.

Renee Cocchi

Renée Cocchi has a passion for learning and helping other professionals do their jobs more effectively and efficiently. She earned her Master's Degree from Drexel University, and she’s spent the past few decades working as a writer and editor in the publishing industry. Her experience covers a wide variety of fields from benefits and compensation in HR, to medical, to safety, to business management. Her experience covers trade publications, newsmagazines, and B2B newsletters and websites. When she's not working, she spends her free time just chilling with her family and volunteering at a local dog shelter. Her goal in life is to help all shelter dogs get happy, loving homes!