The Supreme Court last Monday vacated three separate cases challenging the now-defunct vaccine mandates for military service members and executive branch employees now that the mandates have been rescinded, CNN reported.
In throwing out the cases, the high court vacated the decisions of the appeals courts and instructed the courts to dismiss the cases as no longer valid.
President Biden rescinded the federal employee vaccine mandate in May and the Pentagon’s military mandate was rescinded through congressional action in January.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the Court’s decision on two of the three cases, writing that she disagreed with the decision to vacate the appeals court decisions.
After the administration imposed the federal vaccine mandates in 2021, legal challenges were brought against the mandates and the cases were still in the courts when both mandates were rescinded.
Two of the appeals whose rulings were vacated by the Court were filed against the federal employee mandate. The appeals courts in the two cases arrived at opposite decisions on whether federal employees could challenge the constitutionality in court or whether they should first go through the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
In the case brought by a civilian Navy employee, the US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the employee must first go through the MSPB. Several days later, the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the group Feds for Medical Freedom could challenge the mandate in court.
In the third case, which challenged the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction prohibiting the US Air Force from enforcing the mandate against those with religious objections. However, a short time after the ruling, Congress passed legislation directing the Pentagon to rescind the mandate.
