Newsletter RSS

Mealey's Coronavirus

  • October 23, 2025

    4th Circuit Affirms Firing Of Md. Hospital Worker Over COVID Vaccine Refusal

    RICHMOND, Va. — A Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the firing of a Maryland hospital employee over a refusal to get a COVID-19 vaccine after she was denied a religious exemption, finding that the lower court was correct in granting summary judgment to the hospital as the exemption “would have jeopardized patient safety and increased the risk of disruptive outbreaks in a sensitive environment.”

  • October 22, 2025

    Chicago Transit Authority Seeks JMOL, New Trial In Vaccine Refusal Firing Case

    CHICAGO — Citing errors by an Illinois federal court as well as misconduct by opposing counsel, a municipal transit authority on Oct. 21 moved for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) or, alternatively, for a new trial after a jury awarded a former transit authority employee $425,000 for violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act stemming from his termination for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 after being denied a religious exemption.

  • October 21, 2025

    High Court Denies Cert For Shriners Employees Fired Over Vaccine Refusal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Several Shriners Hospitals for Children employees who were fired for not taking the COVID-19 vaccine lost another legal battle against their former employer on Oct. 20 when the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of certiorari.

  • October 21, 2025

    Groups Seek To Lift Stay In Suit To Restore Vaccination Schedule Despite Shutdown

    BOSTON — Several physicians’ professional groups and three Jane Does on Oct. 20 moved to lift a stay ordered because of the lapse of federal funding appropriations, requesting that they be allowed to continue their case against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and several other federal officials and agencies seeking to set aside the HHS’s removal of the COVID-19 vaccination from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended immunization schedules for healthy children and pregnant women.

  • October 20, 2025

    Air, Space Force Members Seek U.S. Supreme Court Consideration Of Vaccine Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Members of the U.S. Air Force and Space Force who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine for religious reasons filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the justices to decide whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) allows for reinstatement to include back pay and retirement points.

  • October 20, 2025

    Man Hurt By COVID Vaccine Seeks Reconsideration Of Dismissal For Lack Of Standing

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man seeking to force the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the Vaccine Injury Table (VIT) so he can be compensated by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) on Oct. 17 moved a District of Columbia federal court to alter or amend its order granting the government’s motion to dismiss.

  • October 20, 2025

    Federal Government Seeks Stay Of Action To Block Ending Of COVID-Related Grants

    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Citing a lapse in funding appropriations for significant portions of the federal government due to the government shutdown, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Oct. 17 moved for a stay or a 45-day extension of the deadline to respond to a complaint filed by several states seeking to block HHS from enforcing a March 24 decision that terminated $11 billion in federal financial assistance used by states for public health emergency preparedness and other public health purposes as no longer necessary because the COVID-19 pandemic had ended.

  • October 17, 2025

    Partly Revived COVID Risk Disability Case Is Dismissed Per Joint Stipulation

    FRESNO, Calif. — A disability case in which the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals revived a breach of contract claim has been dismissed with prejudice by a California federal magistrate judge pursuant to a joint stipulation; an oral surgeon filed the suit after unsuccessfully seeking disability benefits on the grounds that his comorbid conditions and inability to access recommended personal protective equipment (PPE) made it necessary to close his practice early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • October 15, 2025

    1 Of Several Doctors Dropped From COVID-Era Connecticut Malpractice Claim

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — In a medical malpractice lawsuit alleging that a patient’s head injury was misdiagnosed as gastroenteritis during the COVID-19 pandemic, the patient withdrew her complaint against one of the physicians who attended to her in a Connecticut hospital.

  • October 15, 2025

    Airline Workers Fired For Refusing COVID Shot Petition High Court Over Dismissal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. —  A group of former United Airlines employees who filed suit after they were terminated or placed on unpaid leave for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine despite seeking religious exemptions are asking the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition for writ of certiorari whether a dismissed Illinois Whistleblower Act claim should have been permitted to proceed in the face of a potential violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDA) and whether their complaint should have been dismissed for “failure to exhaust administrative remedies” when “they have either obtained right-to-sue letters or are in the process of obtaining them.”

  • October 15, 2025

    Judge: SBA Used Proper Calculation Of Head Count In Denying PPP Loan Forgiveness

    PORTLAND, Ore. — Concluding that the Small Business Administration (SBA) was correct in calculating a loan recipient’s number of employees in determining eligibility for a second-draw Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan and denying loan forgiveness, an Oregon federal court granted the SBA’s motion for summary judgment in the loan recipient’s lawsuit alleging that the SBA’s decision was arbitrary and capricious and exceeded its statutory authority.

  • October 10, 2025

    Judge: Man Injured By COVID Vaccine May Not Sue HHS To Put Shot On Injury Table

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Finding that a man claiming to have suffered a blood clotting disorder as a consequence of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine could achieve redress only via an act of Congress and, therefore, had no standing to sue the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to force it to add the vaccine to the Vaccine Injury Table (VIT), a District of Columbia federal judge granted the federal government’s motion to dismiss.

  • October 09, 2025

    Interlocutory Appeal In Pandemic Closure Suit Granted As To Promises And Contracts

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California partially granted Pepperdine University’s motion for interlocutory appeal in a class action by students seeking partial refunds for tuition, fees and room and board after the school transitioned to online learning in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • October 09, 2025

    Health Care Workers Axed For COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal Fail In 6th Circuit Appeal

    SAN FRANCISCO — In ruling on one of “a spate of appeals related to vaccination orders spawned by COVID-19,” a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel opined that dozens of at-will, nonprofit health care workers who sued the Washington governor and their employer after they were fired for refusing the state-mandated shot did not succeed in stating “wide-ranging sources of purported rights” to support federal claims and did not provide enough evidence to reverse the lower court’s ruling dismissing and remanding state law claims.

  • October 07, 2025

    4th Circuit Denies En Banc Rehearing Of Dispute Over Denial Of CARES Act Relief

    RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a small business loan recipient’s petition for en banc rehearing of a panel decision affirming the judgment of a Virginia federal court, which granted the summary judgment motion of the Small Business Administration (SBA) in a lawsuit alleging that the agency’s denial of COVID-19-related relief payments for an SBA loan violated the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and violated due process.

  • October 06, 2025

    Parties Invited To Enter Mediation, Settlement Talks In Unfulfilled PPE Order Suit

    BROOKLYN, N.Y. — After a New York federal judge granted a medical equipment company’s motion for summary judgment with respect to its contract claims against a health care product distributor and its CEO seeking the return of a $323,604 down payment for a shipment of nitrile gloves it never received, a federal magistrate judge invited the parties to be referred to a court-annexed mediation program or a settlement conference before the court.

  • October 03, 2025

    Medical Transport Worker, Hospital Agree To Dismiss COVID Screening Wage Case

    CHICAGO — Pursuant to a joint stipulation of dismissal, an Illinois federal judge on Oct. 2 dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit brought by a former patient transport employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state wage laws seeking compensation for time spent being screened and tested for COVID-19 before her shift and for a week she went unpaid because of an interruption in a payroll system.

  • October 02, 2025

    9th Circuit: No ‘Bona Fide Religious Belief’ Shown To Justify COVID-19 Test Refusal

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals majority opined that an Oregon medical center administrative employee fired for refusing to submit to weekly antigen testing for COVID-19 as an accommodation of a religious exemption from a company vaccine mandate failed to demonstrate “that she had a bona fide religious belief” that satisfied the prima facie burden required for a claim of religious discrimination pursuant to Title VII and Oregon state law in affirming a federal trial court’s dismissal of a lawsuit challenging her termination.

  • October 01, 2025

    No Coverage Owed For Washington State University’s Coronavirus Losses, Panel Affirms

    SPOKANE, Wash.— A Washington appeals panel on Sept. 30 affirmed a lower court’s grant of an insurer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in a business interruption coverage dispute arising from the coronavirus pandemic, concluding that it is bound by the Washington Supreme Court's ruling in Hill and Stout PLLC v. Mutual of Enumclaw Insurance Company in holding that a business’ shutdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic does not constitute a “direct physical loss or damage” to insured property pursuant to an all-risk insurance policy.

  • October 01, 2025

    Mass. Appeals Panel Reverses Judgment In Fired Surgical Tech’s COVID-19 Shot Suit

    BOSTON — A Massachusetts Appeals Court panel opined that a lower court was not correct in granting a summary judgment order to a state health care system that was sued for religious discrimination by a surgical tech who worked at one of its hospitals after she was fired for failing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, finding that the employee’s belief that “her body is a temple of God” and that she determined through prayer that she could not get the vaccine could be considered religious for the purpose of an exemption, that the accommodation would not create an undue hardship and that the health care system and hospital could be classified as joint employers.

  • October 01, 2025

    Amazon Workers Who Sued Over Off-The-Clock Work Fail To Disqualify Counsel

    DENVER — Amazon.com Services LLC workers who brought a class complaint in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic alleging that they were wrongly denied pay for off-the-clock work before and after shifts, including long wait times for health screenings due to the pandemic, failed to show that Amazon’s counsel should be disqualified or that Amazon should be sanctioned, a federal judge in Colorado ruled.

  • September 29, 2025

    Texas High Court Denies Review In COVID-19 Contamination Suit

    AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Supreme Court on Sept. 26 denied an insured’s petition for review of a state appellate court’s ruling that a contamination exclusion bars coverage for the insured’s claim seeking coverage for damages and losses incurred as a result of the coronavirus.

  • September 29, 2025

    9th Circuit Vacates Statutory Penalties Of $765 In ERISA Documents Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — Cross-appeals of an Employee Retirement Income Security Act documents case that resulted in statutory penalties of $765 were resolved against a health plan beneficiary, with the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals saying in an unpublished memorandum disposition that Netflix Inc. “disclosed all required documents as soon as administratively practicable ahead of the March 1, 2021, disaster order deadline and did not act in bad faith, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

  • September 29, 2025

    Texas High Court Won’t Review Baylor College Of Medicine’s COVID-19 Coverage Suit

    AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Supreme Court on Sept. 26 denied Baylor College of Medicine’s petition seeking review of an appeals court’s conclusion that the presence of the COVID-19 virus at its premises did not cause “direct physical loss of or damage to” its property, challenging the appeals court’s reversal of a lower court’s judgment following a jury verdict in the school’s favor.

  • September 26, 2025

    Lincoln University Settles Pandemic Tuition, Fees Class Suit For $169,500

    PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania university will pay $169,500 to end a student’s class suit alleging that the school was unjustly enriched after it failed to issue prorated refunds for tuition and fees after the campus closed during the coronavirus pandemic.