Month: December 2021

A 4-year-old Florida boy who suffers from Autism Spectrum Disorder and can’t medically wear a face covering is asking U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch to block the Transportation Security Administration’s ability to enforce the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate, which is in effect until at least March 18.

In an emergency application resubmitted Dec. 21 and placed back on the docket today, Michael Seklecki Jr. of Sanford, Florida, his father Michael Sr., and Lucas Wall of Washington, D.C., request Gorsuch stays enforcement of the mandate pending final disposition of their petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals.

A federal judge refused Saturday requests by the Orlando airport and transit authorities to dismiss a lawsuit challenging their enforcement of mask mandates as violations of Florida law and the state constitution.

The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, which operates Orlando International Airport, and the Central Florida Transportation Authority, which runs the region’s LYNX bus system, had asked U.S. District Judge Paul Byron to dismiss plaintiff Lucas Wall’s claims that the state agencies are requiring passengers to cover their faces in direct defiance of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ May 3 executive order prohibiting any governmental entity from mandating face masks and a June 11 Florida Court of Appeal decision finding public mask mandates are in violation of the Florida Constitution’s privacy clause.

Byron denied GOAA and LYNX’s motions to dismiss in a decision issued Saturday in a case involving not just the two state agencies’ face-covering dictates but also the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate and International Traveler Testing Requirement.

In a victory for the disabled who can’t wear masks and other Americans who believe face coverings should be an individual choice, a federal judge in Orlando, Florida, denied today the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s motion to dismiss the nation’s first lawsuit seeking to strike down its Federal Transportation Mask Mandate.

Instead of tossing the entire case as the federal government asked, U.S. District Judge Paul Byron, in a 30-page decision, sustained Plaintiff Lucas Wall’s charges that CDC’s FTMM is illegal and unconstitutional. Byron denied CDC’s motion to dismiss and instead ordered Wall to file a shorter complaint by Jan. 3. Wall said he intends to do so within a couple days.

A 40-year-old Missouri man disabled from a gunshot wound while serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq who can’t wear a face covering is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to block the Transportation Security Administration’s ability to enforce the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate, which President Biden recently announced his administration is extending a third time until mid-March.

In court papers filed this morning, Anthony Eades of Warsaw, Missouri, asks the tribunal to stay enforcement of the mandate pending final disposition of his petition for review, which he filed Oct. 19.

Eades asks for relief no later than Dec. 20 because he has a flight booked Dec. 21 on American Airlines from Kansas City, Missouri, to Colorado Springs to visit his 15-year-old son from a previous marriage for Christmas. American has refused to grant Eades a mask exemption.

A California man who does business in Texas and resides most of the year in Israel asked a federal appeals court Thursday to order the Transportation Security Administration to reinstate his Pre-Check membership, which the agency suspended one month after he sued it to overturn the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate.

Uri Marcus has been a Pre-Check member for 4½ years. Pre-Check allows known travelers who register with TSA to use expedited airport security lanes. He’s part of a group of 13 disabled flyers plus a former flight attendant from nine states and the District of Columbia who filed six lawsuits Oct. 19 around the country charging TSA with exceeding its legal authority by continuing to extend a requirement that all public-transportation passengers don face masks. He’s the third litigant TSA has retaliated against.