The U.S. Supreme Court Ruled that OSHA Cannot Force Private Employers to Impose Vaccine-or-Testing Mandate

After a back and force legal battle that started in November 2021, OSHA's rule-making has finally come to the scrutiny of the Supreme Court. According to OSHA's emergency temporary standard ("ETS"), employers with 100 or more employees would have had to ensure vaccination of their employees or require employees to produce negative tests and wear a mask in the workplace. A group of employers immediately challenged the constitutionality of OSHA's rule-making. The Fifth Circuit lifted the enforcement of ETS, then the Sixth Circuit reinstated it. And finally, on January 13, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that OSHA went too far. The Court stated that "[a]lthough Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly. Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category."

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