A group of public school workers in Los Angeles have filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District, accusing the district of violating their constitutional rights in various ways during the Covid pandemic, but especially by forcing them to accept a Covid vaccine, or risk losing their jobs.
On Dec. 7, attorneys David Schexnaydre, of Schexnaydre Law Firm, of Mandeville, Louisiana, and Jennifer W. Kennedy, of Sierra Madre, filed suit against LAUSD in Los Angeles federal court on behalf of 165 current and former LAUSD employees.
The plaintiffs allege that the district attempted to force them to receive a Covid vaccine, which they claim is illegal as no Covid vaccines had ever received full approval from the Food and Drug Administration, but had only ever been approved for emergency use.
The lawsuit asserts the school district acted without authority under federal law to require its employees to receive those vaccines, without any opportunity to refuse. According to the lawsuit, federal law governing such emergency use authorizations for medications and other treatments do not allow any employer or unit of government to require anyone to take the medications or treatments, at risk of any kind of punishment, including loss of employment or loss of income.
The lawsuit asserts the LAUSD's 2021 Covid vaccine mandates, through which the district threatened to fire workers who refused the vaccines, violated workers' rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution and other civil rights laws.
The plaintiffs are demanding a range of damages, including payment for lost back and future wages, sick time, vacation pay, and other benefits, plus unspecified punitive damages, because of the "evil intent" of the LAUSD in firing workers who exercised their legal rights to refuse the Covid vaccine.