It’s Thursday morning. Under the executive orders, the UC’s Flu vaccine mandate requires compliance by Saturday, November 1st. However as previously reported, the judge in our injunction case has ordered the UC not to take any action against any member of the UC community until the hearing on our Motion for Preliminary Injunction.

Per my prior post, on Monday, October 27th we filed a request to file a motion for contempt and/or for a TRO because the UC was continuing to publicize the November 1st deadline and was hiding the fact that the deadline has been put off. The UC responded by in effect saying, hey it’s a big place, (big ship takes time to steer) word gets out slowly, but we’ve sent private memos to the chancellors (and maybe a few others) about it and that’s about all this poor little university can do.

And besides judge, you didn’t actually and specifically tell us in your order that we can’t keep misleading our community into thinking they had to get the needle by Saturday.  So bad on you judge.  And, anyway, November 4th is just a few days after our deadline. And did we say that we’re trying to protect our community with an additional “layer of protection”, and those who don’t recognize the beneficence of our actions, well, they will over time and after they get the needle because the pandemic is bad and the community needs that extra layer.

So all the papers are in and now we just wait until the judge issues an order on the request for a contempt hearing, or a tentative decision which should come down Tuesday afternoon.

What should you do if you are a member of the UC community and do not want to take the flu shot?

The best thing to do is to do nothing until the judge makes his decision.  If he grants the preliminary injunction the mandate will be abated until the trial of the case. If he denies the motion, he will probably order some kind of short grace period to comply.

For now, other than providing your HR person or supervisor with the information about the court order, and perhaps emailing the UC attorneys and request their intervention in a denial of access to a UC facility or denial of a benefit if that is happening, there is really nothing more that can be done except waiting for the judge to decide one or both of the two issues before him now.

No need to keep sending me emails about the UC’s continued publicizing of the November 1st deadline since the judge knows that this is continuing to happen.

There is some chance the judge will throw a curveball and do something not expected. If so, we’ll know it when we see it.

So, sit tight and don’t be intimidated by the UC’s bullying.

Rick Jaffe, Esq.