Judge rejects plea by prison guards to exempt them from Oct. 17 vaccination deadline

The roughly 40% of state prison guards who haven't gotten vaccinated against Covid-19 might want to start looking for a place to get a single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot, because a federal judge today rejected their request to block Gov. Baker's Sunday deadline for showing proof of vaccination.

US District Court Judge Timothy Hillman said public health outweighs the arguments the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union made in its lawsuit against the order:

Even considering the economic impact on the Plaintiffs if they choose not to be vaccinated, when balancing that harm against the legitimate and critical public interest in preventing the spread of COVID-19 by increasing the vaccination rate, particularly in congregate facilities, the Court finds the balance weighs in favor of the broader public interests.

In his ruling, Hillman said that, for starters, there's nothing he can do because the guards' union is pursuing similar action against the order administratively, through the state Department of Labor Relations, and that process has to play out before it can go before a court. Right now, it's too early to seek court action on a claim the state is violating the workers' contract rights, because the department serves a quasi-judicial role and has yet to take a side on the issue on which the court can rule.

But more important, Hillman continued, sometimes the public good outweighs contract negotiations - and in this case, the state has an interest in protecting the health of workers, prisoners and the general public by enacting a vaccine mandate for its employees in the face of a deadly virus.

EO 595 [the governor's executive order requiring vaccination] operates as a condition of employment and not a core provision of the ]union's contract], which does not undermine the bargaining agreement and can be seen as a reasonable and foreseeable mechanism to maintain a safe work environment. Further, EO 595 does not appear to prevent Plaintiffs from safeguarding their rights, as the MCOFU is currently pursuing those claims at the DLR. Finally, even if Plaintiffs could show a substantial impairment of a contractual relationship, their claim under the Contracts Clause would not succeed because EO 595 is a reasonable and appropriate way to advance the significant goal of stopping the spread of COVID-19 in the state prison system.

Hillman continued that the Supreme Court "has rejected the idea of a fundamental right to refuse vaccination," in the 1905 Jacobson case involving an anti-vaxxing Cambridge minister during a smallpox outbreak.

The Court recognized that states have the authority to enact quarantine and health laws and that "a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members." The Court explained that it was not the judiciary's role to determine the most effective method to protect the public against disease. Instead, "[t]hat was for the legislative department to determine in the light of all the information it had or could obtain." The Court concluded the Massachusetts statute was constitutional because it had a real and substantial relation "to the protection of the public health and the public safety" amid the smallpox epidemic.

Hillman concluded the vaccination requirement is "rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest."

EO 595 is rationally related to the legitimate government interest in stemming the spread of COVD-19 ... and the vaccines are a safe and effective way to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It is also, "unquestionably a compelling interest." Requiring vaccination for executive department employees is a rational way attain this. For these reasons, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits.

He compared the guards' case to a similar, equally doomed, effort by state troopers to block the order in state court:

As did the Massachusetts State Troopers in a similar case addressed in Massachusetts state court, Plaintiffs "frame the public interest too narrowly, by focusing on its members to the exclusion of everyone else."