February 9, 2022
Litigant Sues Florida Federal Court
to Block Its Illegal Mask Dictate
Traveler Challenging Federal Transportation Mask Mandate
Asserts Court Has No Authority to Require Face Coverings
Feb. 9, 2022
By LUCAS WALL
JACKSONVILLE, Florida – A frequent flyer suing the federal government and seven airlines attacking the legality of the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate and the carriers’ unlawful mask discrimination asked the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida today to terminate its requirement that anyone entering a courthouse cover their face.
Plaintiff Lucas Wall, 45, of Washington, D.C., has been stranded in Florida since he was denied the ability to board a flight June 2, 2021, because of the FTMM and airlines’ discrimination against Americans who medically can’t tolerate having their breathing obstructed. He first filed a lawsuit against the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention seeking to vacate the FTMM, then later in June 2021 brought a second case against Southwest, Alaska, Allegiant, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, and Spirit for refusing to grant medical exemptions to the disabled. In the second suit, Wall is part of a group of 12 disabled flyers pursuing a class action against the seven airlines for unlawfully discriminating against those with disabling medical conditions.
The group says it’s encountered severe bias by the magistrate judge and district judge who are handling both cases. Wall asserts in a motion to vacate the court’s mask mandate filed today that plaintiffs challenging transportation mask mandates can’t obtain justice from a tribunal that itself is breaking federal law by requiring face coverings. Congress has never passed a law allowing federal courts – or any other part of the government – to mandate masks.
“Both the magistrate judge and district judge – who are assigned to both cases – have treated my coplaintiffs and me with great hostility throughout the eight-month litigation of both lawsuits,” Wall wrote in court papers. “My concern is they are biased against us because, inter alia, the Court itself requires maskwearing, even though federal law prohibits forced use of any medical device unauthorized by the Food & Drug Administration or approved only for Emergency Use Authorization. Nearly all face coverings used by Americans to comply with mask mandates meet the definition of an FDA unapproved or EUA-only medical device.”
Wall challenges Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan’s July 30, 2021, order mandating that any person age four and older entering a federal courthouse in Jacksonville, Fort Myers, Orlando, Ocala, and Tampa don a mask. He accuses Corrigan, who is based in Jacksonville, of citing no legal authority for imposing a mask mandate, violating federal law that prohibits mandatory use of emergency medical devices including face masks, and practicing medicine without a license by prescribing the forced use of experimental medical products.
“We can’t hope to receive justice in our challenges to the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate and airlines’ mask policies when this very Court unlawfully requires that anyone entering a courthouse wear a mask,” Wall wrote. “The judges of this Court can’t be impartial in deciding my mask cases so long as a mask mandate with no legal authority is in place. This creates extreme prejudice to my prosecutions, as noted by the magistrate and district judge’s terrible mistreatment of my fellow plaintiffs and myself to enforce our rights under federal laws.”
Wall has been stranded at his mother’s house in The Villages, Florida, since Southwest Airlines and the Transportation Security Administration refused to let him board a flight maskless at Orlando International Airport. He chairs Americans Against Mask Mandates, a group of 600 disabled Americans who can’t safely wear masks and their supporters. The coalition has filed 11 lawsuits in federal courts attacking the FTMM and airlines’ discriminatory policies that exclude the disabled from flying.
Wall’s request that Corrigan end the courthouse mask mandate references 227 scientific studies, medical articles, and videos showing masks are totally ineffective at reducing COVID-19 transmission but harm human health in at least 68 ways.
“The July 30, 2021, Order does not cite any statute empowering the Court to act as doctors and prescribe the use of experimental medical devices,” according to the motion. “It’s shocking the Court orders the use of law-enforcement personnel to enforce a policy that has no basis in the law.”
His argument cites the Food, Drug, & Cosmetic Act, a federal law that allows the Food & Drug Administration to issue Emergency Use Authorizations for experimental medical products such as face masks in a declared national pandemic. But the law provides that any person offered an EUA device has the right to refuse to use it.
“The Court simply has no legal power to force Americans to use an emergency medical device against their will as a requirement of accessing a public building,” Wall wrote. “This Order is disappointing because the Court is tasked by the Constitution to enforce compliance with the laws. But here the Court itself is violating the law – giving litigants fighting mask mandates little hope of success and bringing the Court’s impartiality on this subject into grave doubt. If the Court won’t obey the law itself, how can we expect it to ensure the Executive Branch and airlines comply?”
The case is In Re: Restrictions on Courthouse Access Due to COVID-19, No. 3:20-mc-23, before the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
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