Feds for Medical Freedom v. Biden, No. 22-40043 (5th Cir. 2023)
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President Biden issued Executive Order 14043, which generally required all federal employees to be vaccinated. Employees who didn’t comply would face termination. He also issued Executive Order 14042, imposing the same requirements and punishments for federal contractors. Plaintiffs, Feds for Medical Freedom, raised several constitutional and statutory claims. First, they asserted constitutional objections. They claimed both mandates were arbitrary, capricious, and otherwise not in accordance with law under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). And the contractor mandate violated the APA because it was not in accordance with law. Finally, they sought relief under the Declaratory Judgment Act (“DJA”). Plaintiffs sought preliminary injunctions against both mandates. The district court declined to enjoin the contractor mandate because it was already the subject of a nationwide injunction. But it enjoined the employee mandate on January 21, 2022. On an expedited appeal, the Fifth Circuit majority held that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (“CSRA”) precluded the district court’s jurisdiction. The Government timely appealed that injunction. The Government’s contention is that the CSRA implicitly repeals Section1331 jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims.
The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision and held that it has jurisdiction over pre-enforcement challenges to President Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal employees. The court explained that the text and structure of the CSRA create a decades-old, well-established, bright-line rule: Federal employees must bring challenges to CSRA-covered personnel actions through the CSRA, but they remain free to bring other, non-CSRA challenges under the district courts’ general Section 1331 jurisdiction.
This opinion or order relates to an opinion or order originally issued on February 9, 2022.
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