Summary
This First Circuit opinion affirms the district court's dismissal of a constitutional challenge to Maine's former COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers on grounds of mootness. The court found that because the state repealed the regulation and provided substantial evidence that it would not reinstate a similar mandate, the case no longer presented an actual controversy. The court also rejected arguments that exceptions to the mootness doctrine, such as voluntary cessation or conduct capable of repetition yet evading review, applied. Additionally, the court affirmed the denial of leave to amend the complaint.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the plaintiffs' constitutional challenge to Maine's COVID-19 healthcare-worker vaccination mandate became moot after the mandate was no longer enforced and was repealed.
- Whether the voluntary-cessation exception to mootness applied.
- Whether the capable-of-repetition-yet-evading-review exception applied.
- Whether the district court abused its discretion by denying leave to amend or supplement the complaint to assert broader facial challenges.
Holdings
- The plaintiffs asserted only an as-applied challenge to the former COVID-19 vaccination requirement in the regulation, not a facial challenge to the authorizing statute.
- The plaintiffs' claims were moot because the COVID-19 vaccination mandate had been repealed and there was no ongoing conduct to enjoin or live controversy requiring declaratory relief.
- The voluntary-cessation exception did not apply because the state officials established that the challenged mandate was not reasonably expected to recur and that repeal was based on changed public-health conditions rather than an effort to moot the litigation.
- The capable-of-repetition-yet-evading-review exception did not apply.
- The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying leave to amend or supplement the complaint.
Key quotations
“Because the COVID-19 vaccine mandate has been repealed by way of COVID-19's removal from Chapter 264, and it has not been reinstated, there is simply "no ongoing conduct to enjoin."” (at 752)
“All of these data support MDHHS' conclusion that it was "highly unlikely" they would ever promulgate an equivalent COVID-19 vaccine mandate regulation.” (at 755)
“Coincidence is not causation.” (at 757)
“The claims here are not like those that the Supreme Court has recognized as "inherently transitory."” (at 761)
Factual background
The plaintiffs were Maine healthcare workers who did not work exclusively remotely and were terminated after refusing COVID-19 vaccination based on religious beliefs. Maine's mandate was promulgated in August 2021, stopped being enforced in July 2023, and was repealed effective September 5, 2023. Maine health officials supported repeal with evidence concerning declining disease severity, hospitalization and death rates, increased immunity, changing variants, improved treatments, and the federal government's withdrawal of its healthcare-worker vaccination requirement.
Procedural history
The plaintiffs, Maine healthcare workers terminated after refusing COVID-19 vaccination for religious reasons, sued state officials and healthcare employers, alleging that the mandate's lack of a religious exemption violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court denied preliminary injunctive relief, dismissed the complaint in 2022, and the First Circuit later reinstated the Free Exercise and Equal Protection claims for declaratory and injunctive relief against state health officials. After Maine stopped enforcing and then repealed the COVID-19 mandate, the district court dismissed the remaining claims as moot and denied leave to amend; the First Circuit affirmed.