Judge Denies Maine Governor’s Bid to Halt Lawsuit Alleging Her COVID-19 Vax Mandate Violated Religious Freedom

A District Court judge has denied Gov. Janet Mills’ (D) request to halt the First Amendment lawsuit filed against her administration by Maine healthcare workers concerning the State’s enforcement of the COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

In a ruling last week, Judge Jon D. Levy of the Maine District Court denied a motion to stay filed on behalf of Mills and several other officials in her cabinet.

The lawsuit in question — Alicia Lowe, et al., v. Janet Mills, et al. — alleges that the State of Maine violated healthcare workers’ First Amendment rights by refusing to allow a religious exemption to the vaccine mandate.

The healthcare workers argue that healthcare facilities should have offered reasonable accommodations for employees who objected to the COVID-19 shots for religious reasons.

Because of Mills’ vaccine mandate, which specifically barred any religious exemption, healthcare facilities were unable to offer a testing option for employees.

As a result of this, several healthcare workers were fired after requesting a religious exemption to the mandate. Some of those workers have now filed a lawsuit against both members of the state government and their employers.

It is part of the lawsuit aimed at Gov. Mills and other state officials that is the subject of Judge Levy’s ruling this past Friday.

Mills, Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner (DHHS) Jeanne M. Lambrew, and Nancy Beardsley of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) filed the motion to stay the legal proceedings brought against them, contending that litigation ought to be stopped on account of the fact that the vaccination requirement in question is expected to be repealed in September.

The State Defendants also argue that the rule in question hasn’t been enforced against the named healthcare facilities since early July.

These defendants also stated that they will be pursuing a “move to dismiss this matter on mootness grounds” once the agency rule is repealed in the coming weeks.

On the other hand, the healthcare workers who filed the lawsuit argue that a stay, if granted, would have the possibility of lasting for an “extended, indeterminate period” on account of the fact that they plan to contest any motion to dismiss made by the State Defendants.

The attorney’s for the healthcare workers further argue that because their First Amendment challenge is “to the overall scheme in Maine that prohibits religious accommodations, as opposed to an individual agency rule,” a stay ought not to be granted.

Should the Mills Administration repeal the rule in question, they argue, the healthcare workers’ challenge would fall “under various exceptions to mootness, including the doctrines of sham repeals to manipulate the Court’s jurisdiction, and the ‘capable of reception yet evading review’ exception.”

After laying out the arguments made by both parties, Judge Levy asserted that his ruling turned “largely on the likelihood of whether the repeal of the healthcare worker vaccination rule will render the Plaintiff’s constitutional challenges moot.”

According to the ruling, “an actual controversy must be extant at all stages of the review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed.” Judge Levy then notes that the “burden of establishing mootness rests with the party invoking the doctrine.”

Judge Levy goes on to cite the “voluntary cessation exception” — which states that “a party should not be able to evade judicial review, or to defeat a judgement, by temporarily altering questionable behavior” — as a possible means by which a claim to mootness may be nullified.

The “voluntary cessation exception” can be overcome, however, if a defendant meets the “formidable burden” of demonstrating that it is “absolutely clear the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably expected to recur.”

In his ruling, Judge Levy states that Mills, Lambrew, and Beardsley have not offered “a developed argument, supported by case authority, demonstrating the merit of their mootness argument.” As a result of this, the healthcare workers did not present “a fully developed argument” in response.

Consequently, Judge Levy argues that he is “not in a position” to determine whether the State’s repeal of the rule in question would “render all of the claims” made in the lawsuit moot, and if so, “whether the voluntary cessation exception or some other exception to the mootness doctrine applies.”

With this in mind, Judge Levy went on to deny the motion to stay.

On the same day that Judge Levy released his ruling, the law firm representing the Maine healthcare workers — Liberty Counsel — sent out a press release. In that statement, Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver said:

“This court decision is a positive step forward in this case seeking justice for Maine health care workers. Governor Janet Mills is trying to get away with a hit-and-run where she issued this terrible mandate and now wants to escape responsibility for her actions.”

Earlier this month, these same health care workers filed a petition with the Supreme Court requesting a writ of certiorari for the Title VII claims made against their employers in this same lawsuit.

With regard to their employers, the healthcare workers allege that their employers violated Title VII of federal law, which is intended to protect employees and job applicants from discrimination based on a number of factors — including religion.

[RELATED: Maine Health Care Workers Ask Supreme Court to Decide Whether Their Employers Violated Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws When Complying with Gov. Mills’ Controversial COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate]

It still remains to be seen whether or not the Supreme Court will decide to hear their case. In order for a case to make its way in front of the Court, at least four Justices must agree to grant the petitioner a writ of certiorari.

In May, a three-judge panel reversed Levy’s earlier ruling that the plaintiffs in the case had no basis to claim that their First Amendment rights had been violated by Gov. Mills and the State of Maine.

The court upheld Levy’s ruling that the plaintiffs did not have a civil rights discrimination claim against their employers. However, the panel ruled that the First Amendment claim was viable because similar exemptions had been provided on a secular basis.

“We agree with the district court that the complaint’s factual allegations establish that violating the Mandate in order to provide the plaintiffs’ requested accommodation would have caused undue hardship for the Providers, and so affirm the dismissal of the Title VII claims,” the panel said.

“But we conclude that the plaintiffs’ complaint states claims for relief under the Free Exercise and Equal Protection Clauses, as it is plausible, based on the plaintiffs’ allegations and in the absence of further factual development, that the Mandate treats comparable secular and religious activity dissimilarly without adequate justification,” they said.

Read Judge Levy’s Ruling on the State Defendants’ Motion to Stay