A Los Angeles County judge has denied a preliminary injunction request by Los Angeles city firefighters suing to block a city mandate requiring firefighters to vaccinate and prevent LA from issuing discipline for ignoring the mandate.

In a minute order ruling on the preliminary injunction motion filed by the Firefighters4Freedom Foundation, the court stated that the plaintiffs have not shown a violation of due process by the city, that the city abused its discretion in passing a vaccination mandate, and a sufficient violation of privacy rights. Firefighters4Freedom says it represents 529 Los Angeles Fire Department members.

What You Need To Know

  • A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has denied a motion by a group of firefighters to temporarily halt a Los Angeles city vaccination mandate

  • The judge dismissed arguments by firefighters accusing a range of violations from invasion of privacy to lack of due process

  • Los Angeles city employees faced a Dec. 20 deadline to vaccinate or face discipline up to and including termination

  • Just over 80% of Los Angeles city employees complied with the mandate by the deadline

“Further, the balance of harm weighs overwhelmingly against granting this injunction. This Court does not want to minimize the harm to the individual firefighter who is placed on unpaid leave,” reads the ruling of Judge Michael P. Linfield. “But it is dwarfed by the death of a person due to COVID. We can reimburse a person for monetary losses caused by being put on unpaid leave. We cannot resurrect the dead.”

Firefighters4Freedom filed its lawsuit in September, a month after the Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted to require COVID-19 vaccinations for all city employees save for those with medical or religious exemptions. The city’s vaccine mandate required employees to be fully vaccinated or to have applied for an exemption by Dec. 18. Any employee not complying with the requirement would face disciplinary action, up to and including termination.

According to City News Service, just over 80% of Los Angeles city employees had complied with the mandate by the deadline; at least 244 full-time employees were placed on unpaid leave, alongside 2,508 part-time employees, for non-compliance. Of the full-time total, 113 are LAFD firefighters.

In its initial complaint to the court, the firefighters group called the city’s vaccine mandate “a serious invasion of the firefighters’ privacy” in violation of the California Constitution; in the motion for a preliminary injunction, the group’s counsel said that the pandemic led to “the greatest restrictions on liberty in American history.”

The court rejected both assertions, responding to the first that the firefighters must show a reasonable expectation of privacy in the face of more than 50 million total COVID cases in the United States and more than 800,000 total deaths. In the second, the court acknowledged that “while COVID restrictions might impinge on the liberty of Americans, they pale in comparison to the enslavement of tens of millions of African Americans, the murder and forced relocation of millions of Native Americans, and the imprisonment of more than 115,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.”

Throughout its order, the court cited historic precedent addressing the respect for vaccines in the face of spreading diseases, including Abeel v. Clark, an 1890 U.S. Supreme Court case, in which the high court found that vaccination is “the most effective method known of preventing the spread of the disease.”

“The scientific consensus has not changed since then,” Linfield’s order said.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 7.