Maine Supreme Court Upholds COVID Vax Mandate From 2021

Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court decided on Thursday to uphold a COVID vaccine mandate for emergency workers, which was originally instituted in 2021.

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“The [Emergency Medical Services] EMS immunization rule was consistent with the purposes of the EMS Act, and the EMS Board followed the applicable rule making process for the promulgation of the EMS immunization rule, we affirm the court’s judgment,” said the Supreme Court in its ruling.

Following the ruling, the Maine EMS Board will be permitted to continue forcing all employees to receive vaccines against COVID and the Flu, placing any employees who refuse the vaccines at risk of losing their jobs.

The ruling comes more than four years after the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States, and long after the majority of legal mandates on vaccines, social distancing, and masking have been abandoned.

The original suit against Maine’s EMS board was brought in the summer of 2023 by Christopher Calnan, an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), along with 117 other plaintiffs, most of whom preferred to go unnamed.

Calnan accused the EMS Board of overstepping its authority and violating the medical autonomy of its employees by demanding that workers take the vaccines against their wills or lose their jobs.

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Plaintiffs argued that the decision to require the MRNA vaccine constitutes a major substantive rule change, which would require consideration by Maine’s congress and legislative approval.

Initially, the case was dismissed in by Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy when the EMS argued that it was within its rights to require the vaccines because it is empowered to make licensing rules for the sake of the safety of patients in its care.

Calnan, represented by attorney Terry Mitrenga, appealed the decision and, in February of this year, presented his case before the Maine Supreme Court, where, in Thursday’s ruling, its dismissal was upheld.

“There is nothing in the complaint or record before the court suggesting that the EMS Board did not comply with its rulemaking obligations,” said the Supreme Court.

This case is not the first time that Maine health care workers have failed in their attempts to challenge vaccine mandates.

In 2022, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from health care workers arguing that the mandate violated their First Amendment rights to religious freedom.

That mandate did not allow health care workers to be exempted from the mandate for religious reasons, despite many objecting on the grounds that the COVID vaccine is manufactured using aborted fetal tissue.