Daphne Jane Andre-Rodney, et al. v. Kathy Hochul, et al.

Overview

Daphne Jane Andre-Rodney, et al. v. Kathy Hochul, et al. (U.S. District Court, N.D. New York, Aug. 1, 2022): A New York district court dismissed the claims of New York State hospital security officers who alleged that a state mandate that they be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection and due process. The court held that the state mandate for hospital workers did not burden the officers’ liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment as it did not force officers to consent to vaccination, but rather conditioned their right to be employed at the hospitals on their vaccination status. The court found that while officers asserted a “general liberty interest” in refusing unwanted medical treatment, they did not show that such liberty interest was a fundamental right or broad enough to cover the right to refuse a vaccination requirement imposed in the public interest during a public health emergency pursuant to the state’s police powers. Read the full decision here.

View all cases in the Judicial Trends in Public Health – October 21, 2022.

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