Category: Mask Lawsuits

A frequent traveler banned from flying because he medically can’t wear a face covering filed a 47-page legal brief tonight urging the U.S. District Court in Orlando, Florida, to vacate the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate, which the Biden Administration announced Tuesday will be extended from Sept. 13 to Jan. 18.

Plaintiff Lucas Wall, 44, of Washington, D.C., asserts the FTMM and International Traveler Testing Requirement are motivated by politics, not public health, and are unsupported by law. President Biden said last year he had no constitutional authority to impose a mask mandate.

Lucas Wall, plaintiff in the lawsuit Wall v. CDC seeking to strike down the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate and International Traveler Testing Requirement, appeared on Ohio-based WWGH radio’s “Adam the Computer Guy” show this afternoon to talk about the federal government’s legal filing late last night asking a court to dismiss his case.

During today’s show, Wall and host Adam Lepp discussed the possibility President Biden could be impeached for constantly making statements that proposed policies are illegal and unconstitutional, but then ordering them anyway. Biden has done this with the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate and the Eviction Moratorium. Numerous federal courts have struck down the moratorium and the Conditional Sailing Order restricting cruiseships from resuming operations.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed just before midnight Monday an 88-page brief in Wall v. CDC arguing the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate and International Traveler Testing Requirement should be upheld because Congress authorized the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to adopt regulations that are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into United States or from one state to another – an argument already rejected by five federal courts plus the U.S. Supreme Court in other pandemic cases.

“Congress prudently delegated broad authority to the CDC to take reasonable public-health measures to prevent the spread of communicable disease,” the Biden Administration wrote in its first brief responding to the first lawsuit in the nation challenging the two COVID-19 policies that have restricted travelers on all forms of public transportation nationwide since just after the president took office in late January. “That authority has never been more important than during this pandemic, and the measures at issue here – masking and testing – are conventional disease-prevention steps.”

Plaintiff Lucas Wall, 44, of Washington, D.C., asserts the government’s arguments trying to save the mask mandate and testing requirement iare feeble given the huge number of constitutional provisions, federal laws, and regulations these rules flout.

Four COVID-19 pandemic orders issued by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention have been attacked as exceeding the agency’s constitutional and/or statutory authority and violating other provisions of the Constitution, federal laws, and regulations. Plaintiffs thus far have won five cases while CDC hasn’t notched a single victory on the merits (although it has been able to beat back motions for preliminary injunctions in two cases). There are six lawsuits with no judgments issued yet.

This post details these 13 cases with links to numerous court decisions and documents.

The federal government has a Monday deadline in Wall v. CDC to file – for the first time in any court – arguments as to why the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate and International Traveler Testing Requirement are not illegal and unconstitutional.

The U.S. Department of Justice will submit a brief tomorrow asking the U.S. District Court here to dismiss certain counts of Lucas Wall’s complaint asserting both Centers for Disease Control & Prevention mandates: 1) were hastily issued without the required notice-and-comment period shortly after Biden took office; 2) were not enacted into law by Congress; 3) exceed the Executive Branch’s statutory and constitutional authority; and 4) violate numerous U.S. Department of Transportation regulations prohibiting discrimination against passengers with disabilities such as Wall who can’t tolerate wearing a face covering. DOJ is expected to seek summary judgment against Wall on other counts and to also file the administrative record explaining how the two policies were promulgated.

I’m challenging the Federal Transportation Mask Mandate and International Traveler Testing Requirement in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (Wall v. CDC). I’m also suing seven airlines for illegally discriminating against passengers with disabilities who can’t tolerate wearing face masks (Wall v. Southwest Airlines). Here’s media coverage of my two cases during August 2021: