Lawsuit Asks Court to Strike Down
Federal Transportation Mask Mandate

Washington, D.C., Man Challenges Requirement

as Illegal & Unconstitutional after Denied Boarding

June 7, 2021

By LUCAS WALL

ORLANDO, Florida – A frequent traveler unable to wear a mask filed suit today against CDC; TSA; President Joseph Biden; and the departments of Health & Human Services, Homeland Security, and Transportation requesting a federal judge strike down the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate. This case appears to be the first in the nation to challenge all aspects of the FTMM.

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 Transportation Security Administration 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.

Wall is also seeking an injunction prohibiting the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention from requiring a negative COVID-19 test from every airline passenger flying into the United States from a foreign country. The International Traveler Testing Requirement has been in effect since Jan. 26.

In the 206-page complaint filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Orlando, he charges the federal government with 21 counts of violating the Constitution, laws, and regulations. Wall, who is fully vaccinated, 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.

“The defendants’ goal of easing the impact of COVID-19 is laudable but grossly misguided,” Wall argues. “In attempting to mandate masks for all American travelers and to require anyone flying into the United States – even those fully vaccinated and/or with natural immunity – to obtain an expensive coronavirus test within three days of departing a foreign nation, defendants have acted without statutory authorization or following the rulemaking process required by the Administrative Procedure Act. These policies also raise serious constitutional concerns.”

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.

“Because of the FTMM, numerous state, local, and regional transportation agencies are required to enforce a federal policy that is in direct conflict with state law,” according to Wall’s legal filing. “The Court should hold unlawful and immediately vacate both the FTMM and the ITTR because they are improper, illegal, and unconstitutional exercises of executive authority.”

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.

Wall plans in the 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.

Join my new Facebook group Americans Against Mask Mandates.

Donate to my legal fund on GoFundMe at Help End Federal Transportation Mask Mandate.