Two employees of the city of El Centro have sued the municipality over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
In Manuel Avendano and Arturo Lucero v the City of El Centro, the plaintiffs allege they were threatened, coerced, subjected to duress, and forced to resign because of an illegal mandate to use a medical product that was not approved by the FDA and to which they lawfully declined consent.
“We are in talks with their legal counsel and they have not yet responded to the complaint in court by means of an answer or a motion and it remains to be seen in the next few weeks how they respond,” said Bryan M. Garrie, a La Jolla attorney who is representing Avendano and Lucero. “There could be a settlement. There could be a motion to dismiss or there could be a verified answer.”
The complaint was filed on June 13 in California Superior Court in Imperial County El Centro Courthouse after both plaintiffs exhausted their administrative remedies and received a right to sue letter from the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
“They were treated differently as unvaccinated workers compared to vaccinated workers,” Garrie told the Southern California Record. “The city actually put forth an order requiring testing only for unvaccinated workers when the state of California made no such distinction and had no such requirement.”
The city’s conduct was malicious, fraudulent, and oppressive, according to the lawsuit.
“They coerced them to either get the shot or take an experimental test and then when they declined to do so, they put them on unpaid leave, basically cutting off their means to earn a living,” said co-counsel Matthew P. Tyson. “El Centro declined a request to provide samples of the test kits so that we could have them tested to see if they were harmful and the city declined to stop their mandate. So, our clients had no choice, but to resign.”
Among the causes of action are violations of the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act, which prohibits interfering with an individual's civil rights by force or threat of violence regardless of race.
"The city of El Centro had no right to coerce our clients and then punish them for declining to use medical products not approved by the FDA,” Tyson added. “None of the available COVID-19 vaccines pushed by the city were FDA approved, and neither were the city's tests."
The plaintiffs seek actual damages, treble damages, statutory damages, civil penalties, punitive and exemplary damages, attorney’s fees, costs of suit, including expert witness fees, and an injunction prohibiting the City of El Centro from mandating the use of an experimental medical product on anyone.