On September 9th, 2021, President Biden announced incoming restrictions on non-vaccinated individuals in the workplace. Private employers with 100 or more employees must require their workers to be either be: (i) fully vaccinated or (ii) have them obtain weekly COVID-19 tests confirming they are not live carriers of the virus. Employers must take note: Businesses will also be required to provide paid leave for employees to become vaccinated.
Referred to as the “Covid-19 Mandate,” this requirement has yet to be officially implemented and officials are awaiting the Executive Order as well as the new Emergency Temporary Standard by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which will develop mechanisms for implementation. It is anticipated that there will be various lawsuits challenging the Executive Order, the fate of which is unknown. In theory, legal precedent advises that the Covid-19 Mandate will be held constitutional [i.e., Jacobson v. Massachusetts 197 U.S. 11 (1905)]. However, as has been seen with the Supreme Court’s decision ending the CDC’s eviction moratorium, and the Court’s refusal to block the recent controversial Texas law, the current Supreme Court is anything but predictable; and it could potentially strike down the Covid-19 Mandate based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution (State Sovereign Immunity). This blog will be updated as details emerge.
For more details, contact Burton Law Firm at: 916.822.8700 or info@lawburton.com or, see details at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/covidplan/.
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California has required employers to “indemnify” employees for “necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties, or of his or her obedience to the directions of the employer” in substantially the same terms since 1937 under Labor Code § 2802.
