Category: Mask Lawsuits

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.

The father of a 4-year-old autistic boy suing the Transportation Security Administration in the Supreme Court to enjoin enforcement of the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate appeared on “The Ingraham Angle” Monday night to discuss the lawsuit and an incident in late October when he and his son were denied boarding by Frontier Airlines because the boy medically can’t wear a face mask.

Michael Seklecki Sr. discussed his lawsuit, on behalf of himself and his son Michael Jr., that is now in the hands of the chief justice of the United States after the Supreme Court docketed Dec. 2 an emergency application to stop TSA from enforcing the requirement that all passengers and workers in the nation’s entire transportation workers wear a face covering.

An Alaska man suing Alaska Airlines over its discriminatory mask policy asked the U.S. District Court in Orlando, Florida, to restrain the carrier from refusing him transportation because he was eating on a recent flight without donning a mask.

Peter Menage of Palmer, Alaska, works in the remote North Slope oilfields along the Arctic Ocean in far northern Alaska. He must fly every three weeks from Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay for his job. Menage has a doctor’s note exempting him from wearing a face covering, but Alaska has refused to grant him an exception in violation of several federal laws, the motion for a temporary restraining order states.

The legality and constitutionality of the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate is now in the hands of the chief justice of the United States after the Supreme Court docketed Thursday an emergency application — from a 4-year-old Florida boy who suffers from autism and can’t medically wear a face covering — to stop the Transportation Security Administration from enforcing the requirement.

The appeal of a lower-court order denying a stay arrived in the chambers of Chief Justice John Roberts just hours after President Biden announced Thursday his administration is extending the FTMM a third time until mid-March.

A 4-year-old Florida boy who suffers from Autism Spectrum Disorder and can’t medically wear a face covering is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the Transportation Security Administration’s ability to enforce the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate, which President Biden plans to announce today his administration is going to extend a third time until mid-March.

In an emergency application delivered to the high court Wednesday – which should be docketed, assigned a case number, and submitted to Chief Justice John Roberts today – Michael Seklecki Jr. of Sanford, Florida, his father Michael Sr., and Lucas Wall of Washington, D.C., jointly ask the Supreme Court to stay enforcement of the mandate pending final disposition of their petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Michael Sr. and Wall can’t tolerate covering their face due to their anxiety disorders.

The U.S. Department of Transportation determined JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines violated federal law when they refused to grant a disabled Virginia man mask exemptions, a win for Americans with medical conditions battling the airlines over their extremely restrictive policies on face coverings.

DOT found JetBlue violated the Air Carrier Access Act by failing to provide an accommodation to a passenger with a disability with respect to the carrier’s mask policy for Kleanthis Andreadakis’ October 2020 request to fly maskless from Richmond, Virginia, to Boston, Massachusetts, for the birth of his first granddaughter.