The Supreme Court docket on Friday morning as soon as once more declined to weigh in on a case introduced by New York healthcare staff who have been denied a spiritual lodging from the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare staff and misplaced their jobs once they weren’t vaccinated. The denial of rehearing in Does 1-2 v. Hochul got here as a part of the third and final regularly scheduled list of summer orders.
Summer season order lists usually function an opportunity for the justices to filter a few of the pending requests for motion – significantly petitions for rehearing – that construct up between the top of June or early July, once they maintain their ultimate convention earlier than their summer time recess, and late September, once they return and maintain the so-called “long conference.” Though the courtroom ordinarily doesn’t add new circumstances to its deserves docket on its summer time order lists (versus after the “lengthy convention”), it typically opts to take action, because it did on July 20, when it granted assessment in Jouppi v. Alaska.
In Does 1-2 v. Hochul, the courtroom denied the healthcare staff’ original petition for review on June 29, over a dissent by Justice Neil Gorsuch that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined. Gorsuch contended that the healthcare staff’ case “raises an vital and recurring query of federal legislation that warrants this Court docket’s consideration.” “I fail to notice,” Gorsuch emphasised, “how a state legislation (particularly an unconstitutional state legislation) prohibiting an lodging can all the time and mechanically provide an employer with a” protection that accommodating the worker’s spiritual observance or apply would place an “undue hardship” on the employer’s enterprise.
On July 23, the healthcare staff asked the Supreme Court docket to rethink its denial of assessment. They argued that the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, whose decision the Supreme Court docket had left in place, has continued to stick to its place that “federal antidiscrimination claims should yield to opposite state statutory schemes.” Furthermore, they added, the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the ninth Circuit has additionally “adopted the framework that spiritual lodging should yield to opposite state legal guidelines,” which exacerbates the division amongst federal appeals courts on this query – an vital issue that the Supreme Court docket considers in deciding whether or not to grant assessment.
On Friday, the courtroom turned down the healthcare staff’ petition for reconsideration with out asking New York Governor Kathy Hochul to reply.
The justices will meet on Sept. 28 for his or her “long conference”; they’re more likely to difficulty an preliminary listing of orders from that convention later that week.
Beneficial Quotation: Amy Howe, In ultimate scheduled summer time order listing, Supreme Court docket once more declines to weigh in on COVID-19 vaccine mandate case, SCOTUSblog (Sep. 4, 2026, 10:25 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/09/in-final-scheduled-summer-order-list-supreme-court-again-declines-to-weigh-in-on-covid-19-vaccin/