The Antelope Valley Times

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Five LA County employees sue over vaccine mandate

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Five Los Angeles County employees are suing their employer, alleging the vaccine mandate for county workers issued by executive order in August and ratified by the Board of Supervisors is unconstitutional.

The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit also alleges the directive exceeds the county’s power under the Emergency Services Act and was implemented during proceedings that violated the state’s open-meeting law.

Hilda Solis, chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, issued an executive order on Aug. 4 requiring the county’s 110,000 employees to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 by Friday, with exemptions for medical and religious reasons. The Board of Supervisors ratified her order six days later, making it official county policy.

However, according to the lawsuit, thousands of county employees have not complied.

“They will risk their jobs rather than violate their conscience and follow a plainly unlawful order,” the suit states.

None of the plaintiffs has complied with the vaccine order, the suit states.

“The county must consider and offer reasonable accommodations as a middle ground between individual freedoms and collective rights,” the suit states. “It did not do that. Instead, it viewed this sensitive personal issue through the lens of partisan politics.”

A representative for the county could not be immediately reached for comment on the suit brought Friday.

The plaintiffs are Sheriff’s Department employees Vincent Tsai and Oscar Rodriguez; Probation Department worker Enrique Iribe; Sanitation Department employee Mohamed Bina; Department of Public Health worker Shayne Lamont; and the nonprofit group Protection for the Educational Rights of Kids, which advocates for civil rights, bodily autonomy, medical freedom and other rights, with a particular focus on children and parental rights, according to the suit.

“PERK joined this lawsuit because of the devastating effect the county’s unlawful mandate would have on children and families in Los Angeles,” the suit states. “County residents cannot afford to lose thousands of public employees on a whim. They would be unable to obtain critical public services, including social services that kids and families depend on.”

The county “cannot just get rid of the unvaccinated employees who Ms. Solis chastised for not doing their part to end the pandemic,” the suit states. “It will have to provide … hearings to everybody. It will have to justify each adverse employment action. This will cost an enormous amount of time and money, as thousands of county employees have either chosen not to take the COVID-19 shots.”

The suit also maintains the public was given insufficient notice of Solis’ executive order.

“Even other members of the Board of Supervisors were caught off guard,” the suit states.

The board’s ratification of Solis’ directive also was done without sufficient notice to the public, according to the suit.

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38 comments for "Five LA County employees sue over vaccine mandate"

    • or die. Take yer pick, snookums.

      Untll then, no worky for you. I wonder if they’ll withhold unemployment insurance from the antis.

      • With the survival rate of this virus, unless she is 80 or massively obese, don’t count on it snookums

  3. You are aware that there are covid pills to replace needles? Are you aware that certain healthy lifestyles destroys covid as fast as disinfectant on a toilet used by multiple obese people? Did you know that obese people run to the vaccine way faster than putting down unhealthy snacks and deciding to better their health. I guess you could be right, it’s stupid to not take an unknown chemical in our body and miss out on the all you can eat buffets. I’ll bet you think that your sweaty flatulency and bad breath is tolerated in public just because you are smart enough to get vaccinated. How long can such a smart lifestyle keep one alive? At least you can be smart enough to save your ego and blame your calorie intake on covid at your next doctors appointment.

    • Alby…You are definitely colorful and unique. You are the most entertaining of all the commenters with an imagination that tops all.

  4. It seems that foreign influence is using vaccine mandates to oust those that don’t want to give their job position or their free country away. Where’s the shame with these people? I’ll bet car stereo thefts dropped dramatically when the vaccine mandate started. The call of persecuting the unvaccinated became more stronger than petty theft. They fell into a trap to where the discriminations that they feel and have felt are reinforced into political walls. Read the news from the beginning of this pandemic. It said children, elders and people of color or foreign decent were prioritized for vaccinations. It’s facts based off of science and statistics not bias or discriminations. But they act like they deserve the Nobel Peace Prize and feel higher and mightier than those they don’t know that have shots or not and feel they deserve to replace experienced county employees. Thankfully, because most of them felt the call to get their shots, this pandemic will dwindle down and heavy regulations will be lifted and we can all go back to our normal lives of freebasing and miseducating ourselves.

    • I honestly tried to read all the way through this rambling babble and sadly admit I could not make it in one go.

      Let me guess…you’re a Trumpist.

      • Anything that isn’t agreed with is considered babble. Job opportunities? Babble. Free government housing and free paychecks? Now that makes sense now. Self improvements in life to better health? Babble? Free covid shots and getting up in everyones business about it even if it means getting physical? Makes more sense right? Give it a third or fourth go, swallow your pride, learn from mistakes, don’t be sorry, be different. By the way the world doesn’t evolve around Trump but apparently it does with you and it seems that you all are more bothered than we were when Obama was the presidential sock-puppet.

        • Dude. Really. You are, indeed, babbling… as in, not making coherent sense. Whatever opinion you possess is not making it through the mess of unconnected sentences.

          • It’s gotta be Alby, right? Wall of disjointed buzz word laden lines. Open racism. Immediate misplay of the persecution card when called on babbling. There can’t really be two of those, can there?

        • DiscrimObamaNation

          So, you are okay with billions of $$$$$$$$s to bail out banks and auto companies after the scandal that brought down the economy in 2008.

          No immigrants or homeless people did that. Yet, you bitch about poor getting meager handouts while you say nothing about billions going to criminals.

          THE PROBLEMO WAS NEVER REALLY TRUMP. IT WAS MILLIONS LIKE YOU.

          There is a huge audiend for crazies in this country. Marjorie Greene (she doesn’t deserve the work of typing her 3rd name) raises money off her ‘craziness’. If you lived in her district you’d been sending her money too.

      • Ack! Overload! The array of comedic responses to that little gem are too many – and most would get censored. ;-)

        The visuals alone present a myriad of return quips…

      • “Well, Doc. I dunno why my thing is all oraangy like Trump. All I do every night is watch porn while I’m eating Cheetohs.” -Alby

      • Who wrote this?

        Alby says

        October 7, 2021 at 11:53 am

        Says your television set while you’re sitting on the couch making romance to a box of twinkies.

        Y’know, Alby. If you don’t get a vaccine shot YOU’LL GO BLIND.

  6. Good job county workers! If people want an experimental injection, let them! It’s not about the injection as it is your right not to be forced. The cry baby complainers that are mad we won’t take it, is because many already regret it. Long live the smart ones, let nature thin this herd. One day the weak will lose something they would want, but because we stood up, they may never know. If we lose, we will ALL lose.

    • LOL…”many already regret” getting vaccinated, but not as many as the 300,000 or so unvaccinated people who have died preventable deaths since the vaccine became widely available.

      Pro tip: “Smart ones” do not die easily preventable deaths. So, sure, thin the herd.

        • Well, if the “I refuse the vaccine” crowd was willing to sign a “in the event of covid I get no treatment and will take no ICU space” I’d be fully in favor of just letting them die their preventable deaths, tbh.

          • It’s been reported that health insurance companies are looking at higher premiums for anti-vaccine customers like they do with smokers.

            They did that with AIDS.

            Good! Have them pay full price for their COVID-related care if they like.

    • WendyM… So you learned your ABD’s in school I see instead of ABC’s.. .. you and your tribe of tards are thinning yourselves out…

  7. As long as the State is requiring citizens to be vaccinated to attend events and students to be vaccinated to attend school I fully support terminating employment of any person paid by citizens tax dollars if they refuse vaccination.

    I also fully support their choice to not get vaccinated and I wish them the best in their future employment

    • Lmao, all these anti vaxxers punching the air… y’all can kick and scream all you want… you’re not going to win this. Yes, your little billy and jane will have to get vaccinated to even go to school soon enough.. no one cares about your freedoms and rights when your piss poor choices are killing kids now..

      • You really think your smart with this stupid answer but all you have done is give your rights away to this government. This used to be a free country that our forefathers fought for but not anymore. You agree with giving your right to choose away this time and soon there will be something else the government will come up with maybe they will mandate that all men get castrated and women forced to take a shot so she doesn’t get pregnant and they say it’s in your best interest, this could happen we are one step away. I use these scenario’s because they have to do with our choice what we want to happen to our bodies. The way our government is going how long before they line people up that they feel aren’t good enough and place them in the Gas Showers just like the Jews and the world just stands back and watch it happen, don’t think it won’t and Karma is a bad person

        • LOL…sure man, that smallpox vaccine mandate opened the door to gas showers for sure…

          Oh.

          Wait.

          Yeah it’s been a half a freakin’ century and we are all still waiting!!! WTF? Where’s that gas shower I was promised???

          Keep kicking and screaming, your tantrums are hilarious.

        • Hey MyChoice Drugs are bad mmkay… conspiracy after conspiracy.. that’s exactly why this virus is still causing so much damage..

      • Actually, abortion kills kids, but that’s another subject. Children are not the victims in this covid mess.

        • They will be soon, thanks to stupid anti-vaxxers giving aid and comfort to COVID to mutate enough to go after the children harder and faster than even the adults are getting hit now.