Supreme Court DENIES Request to Block Maine’s Vax Mandate Over Religious Objections 6-3

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday refused to grant injunctive relief to plaintiffs seeking to circumvent Maine’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. In Maine, healthcare workers are required to be vaccinated against an array of diseases. Under a 2019 law, the state disallowed religious exemptions.

Chief Justice John Roberts, and justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh voted with the liberal minority in a 6-3 ruling.

Neither Roberts nor any of the three liberal justices authored an opinion. Joined by Kavanaugh, Coney Barrett wrote that she ruled not grant an injunction on the vaccine partly because the request came via the “emergency docket.”

The emergency docket Coney Barrett referenced is increasingly referred to as the “shadow docket,” so-called because emergency petitions are heard without arguments and the court does not need to issue explanations why they granted or denied relief.  Coney Barrett wrote that issuing an injunction “on a short fuse without benefit of full briefing and oral argument” would not be appropriate in this instance. Her words suggest she may be open to the idea of deciding against the mandate were it to come to the court through its regular docket.

Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas dissented. Gorsuch wrote that “healthcare workers who have served on the front line of a pandemic for the last 18 months are now being fired and their practices shuttered. All for adhering to their constitutionally protected religious beliefs.”

The term “shadow docket” was invented in 2015 by William Baude, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Speaking about the high court, he wrote, “In important cases, it granted stays and injunctions that were both debatable and mysterious. The Court has not explained their legal basis and it is not even clear to what extent individual Justices agree with those decisions… As the orders list comes to new prominence, understanding the Court requires us to understand its non-merits work – its shadow docket.

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