Washington, D.C., July 17, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The State of Oregon and the nonprofit healthcare system PeaceHealth both issued mandates in 2021 requiring healthcare workers to take the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. Oregon’s then-Governor Kate Brown and then-Director of the Oregon Health Authority Patrick Allen imposed the State’s mandate by administrative order, and PeaceHealth would have violated those orders if it had not fired employees who refused the vaccine.
Despite proof that Covid vaccines do not stop the disease from spreading to others, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling dismissing the Boysen, et al. v. PeaceHealth, et al. lawsuit against these mandates. Both courts misinterpreted the Supreme Court’s 1905 decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts as allowing any government medical order labeled a vaccine mandate, whether or not it protects third parties beyond the recipient of the medication. Courts across the country have made the same error.
Jacobson upheld a Cambridge, Massachusetts vaccination mandate during a 1902 smallpox outbreak. That smallpox vaccine stopped vaccinated people from spreading the disease to others. In many other contexts, the Constitution has protected the right to refuse medical treatment. The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed an amicus curiae brief today urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Boysen and clarify that Jacobson only permits vaccine mandates when necessary to protect third parties, safeguarding civil liberties from invasive medical treatments today and in the future.
In cases like Boysen, the Ninth Circuit and other courts have effectively rubber-stamped any so-called vaccine mandate imposed by the government as constitutional under a “rational basis” standard of review. Jacobson itself balanced the plaintiff’s liberty interest in declining the unwanted smallpox vaccine against the State’s interest in preventing that disease from spreading. This means that, even under Jacobson, the government must demonstrate that there is a substantial public-health rationale—such as stopping the spread of the disease to others—before it can override individuals’ liberty interests and mandate vaccination. The Supreme Court has issued decisions since Jacobson affirming that individuals have a substantial liberty interest in being free from unwanted medical care. The Ninth Circuit and other courts have failed to follow those more recent decisions protecting the right to decline such medical treatments. The Supreme Court must address this problem.
NCLA released the following statements:
“It is past time for the Supreme Court to revisit Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which has done so much harm to American liberty.”
— John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA
“Lower courts have continually cited Jacobson v. Massachusetts to justify some of government’s most egregious civil liberties violations. This case offers the Supreme Court the ideal opportunity to correct those wrongs and ensure that Jacobson does not allow further erosion of fundamental American liberties.”
— Christian Clase, Constitutional Litigation Fellow, NCLA
“Properly read, Jacobson‘s narrow holding does not justify vaccine mandates when a vaccine will not prevent transmission to third parties. But lower courts have misread it, and the Supreme Court has remained silent for far too long.”
— Mark Chenoweth, President and Chief Legal Officer, NCLA
For more information visit the amicus page here.
ABOUT NCLA
NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights.
Joe Martyak New Civil Liberties Alliance 703-403-1111 joe.martyak@ncla.legal
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