Frequent Flyer Asks Court to Restrain Enforcement
of Federal Transportation Mask Mandate

Washington, D.C., Man Challenges Requirement as

Illegal & Unconstitutional after Denied Boarding

June 10, 2021

By LUCAS WALL

ORLANDO, Florida – A fully vaccinated frequent traveler unable to wear a mask filed this evening an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order to stop the government from enforcing the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate. The lawsuit is before the U.S. District Court in Orlando.

Lucas Wall, 44, of Washington, D.C., was stopped from boarding his Southwest Airlines flight June 2 from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale for not wearing a face covering despite having submitted the required exemption form to Southwest on May 31 when he booked his ticket. Wall suffers from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which causes him hyperventilation and panic attacks when he tries to cover his mouth and nose.

The lawsuit names the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the Transportation Security Administration, President Joseph Biden, and other federal agencies as defendants. In tonight’s emergency motion, Wall asks the court to restrain enforcement of the mask mandate nationwide for 14 days so the judge can consider more lengthy arguments concerning its legality and constitutionality. This case appears to be the first in the nation to challenge all aspects of the FTMM.

TSA would not let Wall through its checkpoint June 2 after Southwest refused to grant him a medical exemption. The FTMM has been in effect since Feb. 1.

“I have ticketed plans to travel by air again in six days and will be directly and imminently harmed if the FTMM is not temporarily restrained (because the Federal Defendants will again deny me the ability to travel by air),” Wall wrote in seeking an emergency order from U.S. District Judge Paul Byron. “I also still need to complete my blocked June 2 flight from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale immediately, otherwise I won’t be able to use the ticket I paid for to fly from Fort Lauderdale to Salt Lake City on the 16th.”

In the lawsuit filed June 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Orlando, Wall charges the federal government with 21 counts of violating the Constitution, laws, and regulations. He also charges the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, which operates Orlando International Airport, and the Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which manages the Orlando region’s LYNX bus system, with violating Florida law prohibiting any governmental agency from requiring any person to wear a mask.

Florida is one of 10 states that never had a statewide mask mandate. Wall contends the FTMM violates states’ rights under the Constitution’s 10th Amendment. Only four of the 50 states currently require fully vaccinated people to wear face coverings after CDC issued revised guidance May 13 that the inoculated can ditch their masks.

Wall, a former transportation reporter and editor who has flown more than 1.5 million miles, has been taking care of his mother in The Villages, Florida, during the last several months of the pandemic. Now that he and his mom have been fully vaccinated, Wall has eight airline tickets booked for summer travel, which was supposed to start with last Wednesday’s flight to Fort Lauderdale.

Tonight’s request for a temporary restraining order argues: “The FTMM: (1) was issued without observing the notice-and-comment procedure required by the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”); (2) is not in compliance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act; (3) constitutes arbitrary and capricious agency action; (4) exceeds Defendant CDC’s statutory authority under the Public Health Service Act; (5) is an improper delegation of legislative power; (6) violates the 10th Amendment because it applies to intrastate transportation in direct conflict with the mask policies of 46 states; (7) violates the Fifth Amendment’s right to due process by assigning FTMM enforcement and exemption powers to private companies as well as state, regional, and local agencies with no ability to appeal denial of boarding to a federal decisionmaker; (8) violates the constitutional right to freedom of travel; (9) exceeds Defendant TSA’s statutory authority to ensure transportation security; (10) does not comply with Defendant DOT’s regulations concerning how to treat passengers with a known communicable disease; and (11) violates the Air Carrier Access Act by discriminating against all passengers with disabilities who can’t wear face masks by barring them from flying or having to submit to numerous onerous requirements of transportation providers to obtain an exemption that violates the ACAA and its accompanying regulations.”

The case is Wall v. CDC, No. 6:21-cv-975-PGB-DCI. Wall plans next week to file a separate federal lawsuit against Southwest and six other airlines for violating the Air Carrier Access Act by discriminating against passengers with disabilities who seek exemptions from mask rules.

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