The en banc court affirmed the district court’s judgment on the pleadings in favor of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that LAUSD’s COVID-19 vaccination policy (the Policy), which required all employees to be fully vaccinated, violated plaintiffs’ substantive due process and equal protection rights.

Plaintiffs alleged that the Policy violated their fundamental right to bodily integrity in refusing medical treatment because COVID-19 vaccines are therapeutic treatments that reduce symptoms but do not prevent infection or transmission and additionally pose significant health risks to the recipients. Plaintiffs also alleged that the Policy violated their right to equal protection because it arbitrarily classifies employees based on their vaccination status.

As a threshold issue, the en banc court held that this case was not moot. Although LAUSD rescinded the Policy shortly after oral argument before the three-judge panel, the court could still grant effective relief by ordering reinstatement of the individual plaintiffs who remain terminated from their original positions under the Policy.

On the merits, the en banc court, joining all the sister circuits that have considered substantive due process challenges to COVID-19 vaccine mandates, held that the Policy was subject to rational basis review because Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), which upheld a smallpox vaccine mandate, remains binding. Jacobson holds that the constitutionality of a vaccine mandate, like the Policy here, turns on what reasonable legislative and executive decisionmakers could have rationally concluded about whether a vaccine protects the public’s health and safety, not whether a vaccine actually provides immunity to or prevents transmission of a disease.

The Policy survives such review, as the LAUSD could have reasonably concluded that COVID-19 vaccines would protect the health and safety of its employees and students. For this reason, plaintiffs’ equal protection claim also failed under rational basis review. The en banc court therefore affirmed the district court’s order granting LAUSD’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.

Dissenting, Judge Owens wrote that the court lacks jurisdiction because the case is moot, given that there is no longer any policy for the court to enjoin or declare unlawful. Nothing in the record (or the world) even hints at the possibility that LAUSD would resurrect its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The majority’s assertion that the complaint’s boilerplate language fairly encompassed a request for employment reinstatement did not survive close inspection.

Dissenting in part, Judge Lee, joined by Judge Collins, wrote that although he agrees that the case is not moot, he believes that the court should not affirm the dismissal of this lawsuit without permitting the plaintiffs to offer evidence to rebut government officials’ far-reaching claims. Contrary to the majority, he read the Supreme Court’s decision in Jacobson as applying only if a vaccine prevents the transmission and contraction of a disease. The plaintiffs here plausibly claimed—at least at the pleading stage—that the COVID-19 vaccine mitigates serious symptoms but does not “prevent transmission or contraction of COVID19.” And if that is true, then Jacobson’s rational basis review does not apply, and the court must examine the vaccine mandate under a more stringent standard of review. Ultimately, the plaintiffs may be wrong about the COVID-19 vaccine, but they should be given a chance to challenge the government’s assertions about it.

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2025/07/30/22-55908.pd