The OSHA vaccine or testing mandate with workers with more than 100 employees is back on and can take effect immediately. The 6 Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a ruling Friday night that overturned the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
If you work in a company with more than 100 employees regardless of your state Governor or rules by your state legislator, you must either be fully vaccinated or get regular COVID-19 testing starting January 4, 2022.
This case will continue to move forward through the 6th Circuit but this particular ruling will probably be appealed at the Supreme Court level.
On a totally different note with a separate mandate the Biden administration has asked the Supreme Court to lift the preliminary injunction and reinstate the CMS vaccine mandate in those 24 states that currently have it paused.
Looking at the OSHA emergency temporary standard multiple states have been filing multiple cases challenging this OSHA vaccine or testing emergency temporary standard in several different appellate courts across the country.
Due to how our legal system works when multiple appellate courts are hearing the same case they all get entered into a Multi-circuit lottery. In the lottery one appellate court is selected at random to consolidate all those cases and rule on them.
Ultimately in this case the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals was the Multi-circuit lottery winner so all the cases got moved into that court. Just days before the multi-circuit lottery happened the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that also had a case before it issued a nationwide stay or more commonly known as a pause.
The Multi-circuit lottery winner could either uphold, modify or dissolve that 5 Circuit ruling once all the cases were consolidated. Well the cases were consolidated and the 6th Circuit decided Friday to dissolve the 5th Circuit ruling.
Every mandate is different and just because one has a stay or not doesn’t mean they all do the same if one is lifted. This case isn’t over yet and it most likely will appear in front of the Supreme Court.
