5 LA County employees sue over vaccine mandate for workers

Five Los Angeles County employees are suing their employer, alleging the vaccine mandate for county workers issued by executive order in August and ratified by the Board of Supervisors is unconstitutional.

The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit also alleges the directive exceeds the county’s power under the Emergency Services Act and was implemented during proceedings that violated the state’s open-meeting law.

Hilda Solis, chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, issued an executive order on Aug. 4 requiring the county’s 110,000 employees to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 by Friday, with exemptions for medical and religious reasons. The Board of Supervisors ratified her order six days later, making it official county policy.

However, according to the lawsuit, thousands of county employees have not complied.

“They will risk their jobs rather than violate their conscience and follow a plainly unlawful order,” the suit states.

None of the plaintiffs has complied with the vaccine order, the suit states.

“The county must consider and offer reasonable accommodations as a middle ground between individual freedoms and collective rights,” the suit states.

“It did not do that. Instead, it viewed this sensitive personal issue through the lens of partisan politics.”

A representative for the county could not be immediately reached for comment on the suit brought Friday.

The plaintiffs are Sheriff’s Department employees Vincent Tsai and Oscar Rodriguez; Probation Department worker Enrique Iribe; Sanitation Department employee Mohamed Bina; Department of Public Health worker Shayne Lamont; and the nonprofit group Protection for the Educational Rights of Kids, which advocates for civil rights, bodily autonomy, medical freedom and other rights, with a particular focus on children and parental rights, according to the suit.

“PERK joined this lawsuit because of the devastating effect the county’s unlawful mandate would have on children and families in Los Angeles,” the suit states.

“County residents cannot afford to lose thousands of public employees on a whim. They would be unable to obtain critical public services, including social services that kids and families depend on.”

The county “cannot just get rid of the unvaccinated employees who Ms. Solis chastised for not doing their part to end the pandemic,” the suit states.

“It will have to provide … hearings to everybody. It will have to justify each adverse employment action. This will cost an enormous amount of time and money, as thousands of county employees have either chosen not to take the COVID-19 shots.

“The people of Los Angeles will suffer irreparable harm from the mass termination of county employees, including firefighters, law enforcement, EMTs and other first responders,” the suit further alleges.

The suit also maintains the public was given insufficient notice of Solis’ executive order.

“Even other members of the Board of Supervisors were caught off guard,” the suit states.

The board’s ratification of Solis’ directive also was done without sufficient notice to the public, according to the suit.

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