La. nurses threaten legal action over covid mandates

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A Louisiana law firm sent letters to two Lafayette hospital systems Wednesday threatening legal action on behalf of a group of employees if the medical centers don’t back off from announced COVID-19 vaccine mandates for employees. In the letter, the lawyers said they would seek an injunction against Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center and Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center if they did not rescind their vaccine mandates by Sept. 17. They’d further seek to recover damages caused “by this misguided venture,” the letter stated. “Right now the goal is to cause the hospitals to reconsider and to handle it differently and have everybody go on about their business without having to do litigation...We tried to be very authoritative and say here is why we think we’re correct and please reconsider. At this point we’d rather not have hard feelings between the employers and the employees,” he said. The letter claimed the firm is representing a group of over 100 healthcare workers, including physicians and nurses, from the two institutions. The healthcare workers in question were not identified; the letter said “anonymity is maintained at this time to avoid reprisals.” Faircloth and his co-signers argued in the letter that the mandate violates employees’ right to make informed decisions about their healthcare and their right to refuse care. The letter cited cases in various Louisiana courts where an individual’s right to refuse care was upheld. They further argued a business should not be able to take action against employees for refusing to participate in an employment act that is against the law, which they believe the COVID-19 mandates are. The letter claimed the threat of legal action was “not a referendum on the risks of COVID-19, the efficacy of the vaccines, the availability of treatments options, or the intentions of anyone.” “We urge [you] to step back from the intensity of the public debate over COVID-19 and recognize the legal implications of its actions,” the attorneys wrote.

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