Court Orders Preliminary Injunction Halting Enforcement of CMS Vaccine Mandate

November 29, 2021

This morning, the United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri, issued a preliminary injunction halting the Biden Administration from enforcing its vaccine mandate on healthcare workers. 

On November 10, 2021, Nebraska co-led a coalition of 10 states in filing a lawsuit to stop that mandate, which was issued by Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

“This is significant for healthcare workers in Nebraska, especially rural hospitals who were facing serious impacts due to this mandate,” said Attorney General Peterson. “Today’s ruling immediately prevents enforcement of the mandate. While we do anticipate the federal government will seek immediate review by the Eighth Circuit, we are confident that the analysis by the trial court will be confirmed.”

The court’s preliminary injunction enjoined the Biden Administration from enforcing the vaccine mandate on any “Medicare- and Medicaid-certified [healthcare] providers and suppliers within the States of Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.” This means that healthcare workers will not need to be vaccinated in order to keep their jobs and that healthcare administrators will not need to implement the federal government’s vaccine policies. In enjoining the mandate, the court concluded that CMS did not have the authority to issue the mandate and that the mandate was arbitrary and capricious.

Updates on all three lawsuits in response to federal vaccine mandates can be found here.