{"id":669,"date":"2026-06-29T20:40:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=669"},"modified":"2026-06-29T20:40:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:40:28","slug":"gorsuch-skewers-scotus-for-ducking-covid-shot-mandate-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=669","title":{"rendered":"Gorsuch Skewers SCOTUS For Ducking Covid Shot Mandate Case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The U.S. Supreme Court ducked yet another case involving religious exemptions and vaccine mandates on Monday. And Justice Neil Gorsuch and a few of his colleagues were not shy about voicing their frustrations about it.<\/p>\n

Read more John Roberts: Presidents Have Executive Power. Also John Roberts: No, They Don\u2019t<\/a><\/p>\n

In its latest , the high court revealed that it will not take up and hear arguments in Doe v. Hochul<\/em> next term. The case involves a challenge brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by New York health care workers who were fired after choosing not to get the Covid shot due to their religious beliefs. <\/p>\n

SCOTUS rules require that at least four justices must agree to hear a case before it can be considered by the full court. But according to Monday\u2019s order list, only Justices Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito were willing to hear the Doe<\/em> case. <\/p>\n

Writing on behalf of his fellow dissenters, Gorsuch noted how the district court and 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the plaintiffs\u2019 lawsuit, with the latter opting not to \u201cassess the reasonableness of the plaintiffs\u2019 requested accommodations.\u201d He further observed how the circuit court reasoned that granting their sought-after religious accomodations \u201cwould have imposed an \u2018undue hardship\u2019 on their employers because it \u2018would have required the [employers] to violate the state [vaccine] regulation\u2019 and \u2018subjected the [employers] to financial penalties or a suspension or revocation of their operating licenses.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSoon after it decided this case, the Second Circuit reiterated its understanding of Title VII\u2019s undue hardship defense, holding that \u2018an accommodation that would require an employer to violate\u2019 a state law necessarily \u2018imposes an undue hardship\u2019 \u2014 and does so even when the state law is \u2018unconstitutional as applied\u2019 to the plaintiff,\u201d Gorsuch wrote. But \u201cI harbor serious doubts about the Second Circuit\u2019s rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump appointee went on to dissect the 2nd Circuit\u2019s holding and lay out the legal rationale disputing it. More notably, however, he took to task the significance of the case and its importance to health care workers and other Americans across the country. <\/p>\n

Read more Supreme Court Allows Lower Court Blockade On Trump\u2019s Federal Reserve Firing To Remain In Place<\/a><\/p>\n

While noting that the Covid outbreak is over, Gorsuch pointed out how health care workers were heralded as \u201ccourageous[]\u201d for \u201cserv[ing] on the front line during a pandemic only then to lose their jobs\u201d as the result of such mandates. He subsequently warned that, if the 2nd Circuit\u2019s rule is permitted to dominate the country\u2019s legal landscape, \u201ccivil rights protected by federal law will give way whenever a contrary state law \u2014 even an unconstitutional state law \u2014 is in play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPut simply, addressing this case is well worth our time \u2014 and correcting its error should have been an easy business,\u201d Gorsuch wrote. <\/p>\n

Subtly jabbing his colleagues for their unwillingness to consider the case, the justice highlighted how the high court was willing to \u201csummarily reverse[] a similar decision\u201d involving Louisiana courts \u2014 which \u201cheld that a state statute barred a plaintiff\u2019s federal claims\u201d \u2014 not that long ago. In quoting from that decision, he reasoned that \u201c[i]t would have been the simplest thing to repeat that same message here,\u201d or, if some agree with the 2nd Circuit, to have \u201cscheduled this case for argument.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the Court\u2019s refusal to follow either of those courses today, I can only hope that lower courts will more carefully consider in future cases whether a defendant can successfully mount a Title VII undue hardship defense simply by pointing to a state-law mandate,\u201d Gorsuch wrote. \u201cI hope, too, that one day soon this Court will choose to settle the question so that other Americans seeking to vindicate their civil rights do not suffer the same fate as those now before us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case involving Covid vaccine mandates is one of several that the Supreme Court has declined to take up in recent years. <\/p>\n

Read more What A 20-Year-Old Convertible With A Broken Roof Taught Me About The Good Life<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Justice Gorsuch rebuked SCOTUS for ducking a case involving health care workers’ religious objections to New York’s Covid shot mandate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[14,2353,2354,876,1521,2139,445,135,2355],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scotus","tag-covid","tag-covid-vaccine-mandates","tag-health-care-workers","tag-neil-gorsuch","tag-new-york","tag-religious-freedom","tag-scotus","tag-supreme-court","tag-vaccine-mandates"],"yoast_head":"\nGorsuch Skewers SCOTUS For Ducking Covid Shot Mandate Case - Property Transition Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=669\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gorsuch Skewers SCOTUS For Ducking Covid Shot Mandate Case - 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